DevSource: Microsoft Microsoft Architecture

Java developers can rest easy now. When Oracle announced its plans for Sun Microsystems this week, the company's executives also announced that it would sponsor the annual JavaOne conference in September. This year, JavaOne will start at the same time as Oracle OpenWorld, but JavaOne will remain a separate conference.

For its fiscal second quarter, Microsoft reported better-than-expected results thanks to strong sales of its Windows 7 operating system. However, Microsoft executives said that the enterprise software market remains stagnant as businesses continue to hold off refreshing their old hardware and software. Microsoft's Business Division also saw its revenues slip during the quarter.

IronJS is an open-source project that works to deliver an implementation of the JavaScript Web development language to the Microsoft .NET Framework. Here, IronJS creator Fredrik Holmstrom talks about how he uses C# and JavaScript in his professional work and how he uses a mix F#, Python and Clojure for his personal pursuits.

Apple's iPad, the company's long-rumored tablet PC, finally made its rollout during an event in San Francisco on Jan. 27. From the start, Apple is encouraging developers to start crafting programs for the iPad, which will be released sometime in the next two months, through the release of the iPhone SDK 3.2 beta. Some 140,000 apps will be available through the App Store at the time of the iPad's general release, a number that Apple likely hopes will explode as developers craft additional programs and games for the device.

Instantiations, a maker of software quality, security and productivity tools for the Eclipse open source software platform, has announced an upgrade to version 7.3 of its graphical user interface (GUI) building product, GWT Designer.

Microsoft recently delivered an updated Windows Mobile 6.5 Software Development Kit and then apparently pulled it not long after, citing plans for further testing.

AMD is rolling out three processors with prices of less than $100, designed for desktops. The one Phenom and two Athlon processors are aimed at cost-conscious consumers who want to take advantage of DirectX 11 and other features in Microsoft's Windows 7. AMD also unveiled two other processors that are priced higher than $100.

ComponentOne releases Studio for SharePoint 2010, a suite of tools for working with Microsoft SharePoint.

Microsoft announces that the Bing Maps Silverlight site is no longer being beta tested and has gained two new features: Local Events, which displays the day's happenings on a map of a particular area, and Destination Maps, which can render a selected portion of a map in a variety of fanciful styles with names such as Treasure Map.

Google plans to incorporate a complete media player into its upcoming Chrome OS that has enough functionality to challenge Microsoft’s Windows Media Player. If Google and its PC partners can get Chrome OS onto enough machines, the search engine giant could seriously challenge Microsoft on its own turf.

Mobile analytics firm Flurry has found new evidence for the mysterious Apple tablet. Specifically, Flurry found applications that take advantage of the device’s larger screen. The tablet is likely to encourage developers to create newer and pricier applications.

ComponentOne is now offering its Studio for SharePoint 2010, a suite of development tools for working with Microsoft’s SharePoint. The Studio for SharePoint 2010 suite offers a number of features to help “both technical and non-technical” people work with Microsoft’s SharePoint server products.

A new report from Forrester Research finds that many businesses are now moving to adopt Agile application development methodologies. The Forrester report also found that about half of the developers it surveyed reported that they now use Agile practices.

News Analysis: Project Vulcan is IBM's stab at integrating its Lotus messaging and collaboration suites with CRM and ERP business applications, and providing reports on the data with its own Cognos business analytics. The kicker is that IBM is striving to do this from a single platform, blending on-premises applications with cloud computing apps and extending these to the mobile enterprise. Piece of cake, right? Vulcan, which IBM will open to developers through its new LotusLive Labs in the second half of 2010, is evolving.

Microsoft plans to release SQL Server 2008 R2, currently in the CTP phase, by May.

Amazon announces a software development kit (SDK) for developers to create applications and content for its Kindle e-reader platform.

Embedded database vendor McObject announces the availability of the Java Native Interface for ExtremeDB in a nod to the Java community.

Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems is expected to be approved any day now, but the question many asked when the database giant initially announced its acquisition plans in April 2009 remains: What will happen to Java?

At its AT&T Developer Summit, AT&T announced a slew of initiatives aimed at increasing its penetration in the mobile phone space, including supporting multiple application stores. Meanwhile, AT&T’s new partnership with WaveMarket is aimed at helping developers build location-aware applications for all major operating systems.

Microsoft plans to join the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Working Group to help push the SVG specification forward, a move welcomed by many in the community and questioned by others.