It's been a tumultuous year at Sun. Amidst losses, layoffs, resignations, and unbelievably intense pressure from not just Java-enemy #2 IBM (in Sun's eyes), but one-time bedfellows BEA and Oracle, the company has tapped its shrinking war chest, its brightest stars, and its soul in hopes of restoring the luster that once graced this company.

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After a year of turning on its full court press with the Java Desktop and Enterprise systems, biting the Solaris for Intel bullet (albeit with AMD), realigning engineering, marketing, and sales around one of its biggest threats (Red Hat Linux), reorganizing the executive suite, doing an about face with the Web Services Interoperability organization (and following through with full WS-I support in its free J2EE app server), cranking up the innovation portfolio with technologies like N1 and the supposed VB-killer Java Studio Creator, making love not war with Microsoft, and trying to convince businesses that technology is what's needed to manage technology (and not giant services outfits like IBM and HP), Sun's key theme at JavaOne, which starts today, will be about momentum.

Sun execs won't say when Sun's financial fulcrum will start swinging in the other direction, but if Sun has its way, attendees will leave JavaOne with goosebumps about the prospects for the future of not just Java, but Sun as well.

High on the list of momentum builders that will be used to stoke the flames of Java developers, according to Ingrid Van Den Hoogen, Sun's vice president for Java marketing, will be Java's progress on the handheld front, particularly in the area of mobile phones. Although the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) may not show up in many PDAs, the global market for mobile phones dwarfs that of PDAs; and due to mobile phones' ever increasing prowess as JRE hosts, the phone market represents the more sizeable opportunity. Among the vital signs that Sun president Jonathan Schwartz will cite in reporting on the health of what Sun is now calling the "Java economy" will be statistics from research outfit Ovum that show how the number of Java-enabled handsets has grown by 250 percent from 100 million to 350 million in one year.

"That's a significant increase for us," Van Den Hoogen told me last week. "All handset manufacturers--including Nokia, Motorola, Sony/Ericsson, Siemens and Samsung--have standardized on Java. There are over 200 Java-enabled handset models and over 90 [wireless] carriers deploying Java-based data services for those phones. That includes AT&T Wireless, Cingular, Sprint, T-Mobile, VodaFone (Europe), Orange (Europe), SingTel (Singapore) and many others. The Java economy is strong. The handset/wireless market is a leading indicator of how things are going."

Van Den Hoogen is using the term "standardized" a bit loosely. In this context, "standardized" usually means that some company is using a technology to the exclusion of other, competing technologies. As it turns out, however, Motorola and Samsung also are shipping Microsoft-based handsets. On the wireless provider front, Orange and T-Mobile are also Microsoft partners.

Why concentrate on Microsoft as the comparative datapoint when the early moving PalmOS seems like the most logical choice? According to Van Den Hoogen (and I agree), the long term platform battle across all fronts--server, desktop/notebook, and handhelds--will be Java vs. .Net. Other developer platforms like PalmOS and BREW will continue to attract attention. (Most Symbian-based handsets include Java support.) But as the different tiers become increasingly more interconnected, especially by virtue of Web services-based bi-directional remote procedure calling, developers will be more attracted to those platforms where their skills are marketable to one or more of those tiers, and ultimately larger markets.

Microsoft, despite getting off to a late start compared to Java and even the Palm OS, has been making some headway. According to a Microsoft spokesperson, in addition to Motorola and Samsung, other licensees of its Windows Mobile software are Compal, HTC, MiTAC, Wistron, Sierra Wireless, and Sagem. Many relative unknowns, indeed. But on the wireless carrier front, Microsoft is also working with TeliaSonera (Sweden, Finland, Norway), Eurotel (Czech Republic), TIM (Italy), KPN (Netherlands), CSL HK (Hong Kong), AIS (Thailand) SMART Communications (Philippines), CECT (China), Orange TA (Thailand), Telkomsel (Indonesia), Optus Mobile (Australia), Telstra AT&T Wireless and, in the U.S., Verizon Wireless (in which Vodafone has a stake).

Still, compared to the 200 different Java-enabled handsets available around the world, there are fewer than 15 handsets running the Mobile Windows platform. This is not insignificant. Not only is mobile Java the one to beat in the handset market, the Java runtime, on the whole (including handset, workstation, server, smart cards, set-top boxes, cars, and Sun says even parking meters) is found on about 1.75 billion devices worldwide, up from 1.2 billion last year (nearly 50 percent growth). According to Van Den Hoogen, HP, Dell, Gateway, Samsung, and Fujitsu are all pre-loading the Java runtime on their systems, and the PC version (J2SE) is getting approximately 8 million downloads per month.

In addition to making hay over such achievements, Schwartz will draw attention to the inclusion of a Java-based infotainment module that BMW will be including in its 5 and 6 series convertibles.

Another encouraging development for Java developers is the way things seem to be settling down on the political front. Sun and IBM may have been at each others' throats up until recently, but evidence suggests that the two aren't the Java adversaries they once were. I wouldn't go as far as to say that they've let bygones be bygones. But, clearly, each is moving in the other's direction. IBM continues to pressure the Java ecosystem with open source gestures and partnerships geared at setting de facto standards.

Late last year, for example, IBM and BEA collaborated on and announced support for a handful of co-developed, but at the time non-standard, Java 2 Enterprise Edition specifications. Although these two J2EE server market leaders have the collective power to bypass the Java Community Process (the official standards-setting organization for Java) and turn anything they co-develop into a de facto standard, the companies submitted the specifications to the Java Community Process anyway.

More recently, IBM asked Sun to open source Java. Sun, in turn, appears more receptive than ever to the idea. Sun's receptiveness includes a settling of its dispute with open source J2EE provider JBOSS. In News.com's reporting on the upcoming event , Martin LaMonica and Stephen Shankland report that a panel discussion regarding the open sourcing of Java involving both Sun and IBM has been scheduled by Sun for Thursday.

In addition, IBM, which in the past has made announcements on the eve of JavaOne that fanned the flames of controversy within the Java ecosystem, is this year one of the event's gold sponsors. News.com's report highlights some of the other major announcements planned for the event, including details on the releases of Java Studio Creator and the next version of Java 2 Standard Edition (J2SE 1.5) currently code named Tiger.

As a final indicator of what Sun is claiming to be the positive karma surrounding Java, Van Den Hoogen said attendance for the event is predicted to come in at 15,000, up 25 percent from last year's 12,000. Van Den Hoogen called the improvement a positive indicator not only for Java, but for the overall economy, considering that many people will be traveling from all over the world.

For now, it looks as though Java's got some game. But its number one nemesis--.Net (which, in the Professional Developers Conference and Tech Ed, has some great events of its own)--is not to be underestimated.

You can write to me at david.berlind@cnet.com. If you're looking for my commentaries on other IT topics, check the archives.