However, getting there (if IBM chooses to do so) would be a different story. The words "hostile takeover" would be an understated way to describe any such move by IBM. The only thing golf lover and Sun CEO Scott McNealy would probably like to see on a tee more than golf balls and the heads of Microsoft executives is the head of any IBM executive. Especially Mills.

While Mills and his software division have probably done more for Java than any other company besides Sun itself, IBM's Java-related activities have grown increasingly self-serving. Most notable is Big Blue's leadership role behind Eclipse. Bearing a name that appears to foreshadow the coup IBM may have in mind, Eclipse is a specification for adapting heterogeneous application development tools into an integrated development environment.

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is a specification for adapting heterogeneous application development tools into an integrated development environment.

Prior to Eclipse, NetBeans was the specification for this sort of tool integration. NetBeans continues to get support from most members of the Java constituency, including Sun. Now, Sun's VP for Java Richard Green is claiming that Eclipse violates the tenets of the Java Community Process (JCP) as well as the integrity of the write-once, run anywhere promise of Java. IBM's top cheerleader for Eclipse, Scott Hebner, claims that Eclipse does nothing of the sort. Experts I've spoken with understand the need for both specifications, but do not disagree with Green's overall assessment.

And then there's the name: Eclipse. Choosing the word "eclipse" for something that was bound to cause friction in the Java world isn't exactly an olive branch to a company named Sun. IBM's Sutor claims the name was derived from the code names of Eclipse's predecessors--Lunar Eclipse and Solar Eclipse. "The name is purely coincidental," Sutor says. "I have no idea why those names were picked." Even so, the fact that IBM is the driving force behind Eclipse now makes the name appear more than coincidental. It could very well be the first of several visible moves to wrest control of Java away from Sun. Meanwhile, Sun claims that the JCP, and not Sun, controls the fate of Java. But IBM disagrees.

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