The agreement was announced here by Scott McNealy, president and chief executive officer of Sun (Mountain View, Calif.), and Colly Myers, chief executive officer of Symbian (London), on Wednesday (March 17), one day before the opening of the giant CeBit exhibition.

Under this joint initiative, which is subject to further negotiation and the closing of a definitive agreement, Symbian will incorporate Java technology that has been specifically configured for the wireless market as a standard part of its EPOC operating system. The agreement is said to be broad-based and is expected to include Sun's PersonalJava and Jini technologies.

Symbian, a joint-venture between Psion, a handheld computer maker, and three mobile phone makers — Ericsson, Nokia and Motorola, was created to develop and license EPOC. The addition of Java to EPOC is a natural addition as Symbian attempts to establish EPOC as the de facto standard, to the exclusion of Microsoft's Windows CE, for smartphones, communicators and wireless information devices in general.

The first products to be developed as a result of the Sun and Symbian agreement are currently expected to ship before the end of 1999.

"With the number of mobile phone subscribers forecast to reach one sixth of the world's population in the year 2005, the potential impact of the Sun and Symbian alliance on the wireless market is enormous," said McNealy.

"The wireless information device is likely to be one of the most influential networked devices to drive customers into the post-PC era, providing a vast new market for wireless networked services and applications."

Symbian's Myers said the relationship with Sun "will further assist the momentum behind the adoption of EPOC and Java technologies as worldwide industry standards, providing significant opportunities for licensees, developers and technology partners." Myers said that EPOC with Java technology would be used in 40 million to 60 million wireless information devices within the next five years.

As part of the Java integration program, Myers said Symbian would try to identify and implement four or five reference platforms to cover a spectrum of mobile phones — from smartphones at the bottom end to communicators with computing and mobile telephony capabilities at the high end.

The agreement with Symbian is an important part of spreading Java technology to all aspects of computer activity, McNealy said.

"If you are working on your computer, you're running Java," he said. "If you're talking on your cell phone you'll be running Java; watching TV, you're running Java — or in your automobile, which will run Java, trust me. If you're not doing one of these four things you're either asleep, dead — or playing golf."

Myers said Symbian's role is to help catalyze the industry so that wireless data services, such as speaking maps and yellow pages, are developed in parallel with terminals able to use such services. "We have to overcome the chicken-and-egg problem," he said. "Which comes first: the smartphone or smartphone services? We need to bring both along together."

In related news, both Sun and Symbian this week announced separate strategic relationships with NTT Docomo, one of the world's largest mobile communications operators, which is expected to be an early provider of so-called third-generation mobile telephony services.