Scott G. McNealy, the CEO of Sun Micorosystems (Sun), who visited Korea in September, emphasized the applicability of Java and suggested tight cooperation with Korean global electronic companies.

He said, "the reason that I visit Korea frequently is that there are many global electronic companies, such as Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, in Korea. Since these companies lead global electronic markets, there would be many possibilities to cooperate with them for embedded market."

Embedded platform as an operation system (OS) plays a key role in controlling the function and performance of all electronic home appliances. While the existing electronic home appliances are controlled on the hardware-basis, new electronic home appliances installed the embedded platform on the software-basis can dramatically increase their utility.

Since the embedded platform can be applied to all electronic home appliances such as mobile phone, DVD, and MP3, it has infinite possibility. As the application of open-source Java platform increases in this market, the position of Sun, which has been stagnated, will be raised.

'Samsung House'
While explaining the market for embedded platform, Mr. McNealy unprecedentedly made a direct reference to Samsung Electronics.

He said, "my children call our new home ‘Samsung house’ because almost all electronic home appliances in our house are made by Samsung. If Java is applied to consumer computing and mobile computing in DVD, set-top box, and mobile phone, its effectiveness can be maximized."

He also explained the relationship with Samsung by saying "although I cannot make pubic the relationship with Samsung, we have had deep and far-reaching discussions about all key technologies."

Accordingly, the IT industry gives attention to the possibility of tight discussion between Samsung and Mr. McNealy to establish a cooperate system. This conjecture by the IT industry is plausible because two companies jointly developed and tested Java mobile phone last year.

What Mr. McNealy mentioned as cooperative areas includes blue ray DVD, Java-based set-top box, and sun client computing. In near future, one of them, which installs Java embedded platform, could come out to the market. However, it is too early to make a conclusion. This is why the IT industry is paying attention to the possible result of the cooperation between Samsung and Sun.