Sun to open "expanded Web" with Jxta

Sun has chosen the slogan "find it, get it, use it" to describe the software, called "Jxta" and pronounced "juxta". Sun said Jxta will let people tap into an "expanded Web" that extends beyond today's Internet, according to a source familiar with the initiative, which will be announced Wednesday. The description indicates the presence of the InfraSearch software Sun acquired in March to bolster the Jxta effort. InfraSearch, based on the Gnutella software, enables searches across interconnected computers lacking a central index. Sun wants Jxta, unveiled in February by inventor Bill Joy, to power a new generation of services on the Internet. Jxta would provide a foundation for running programs across a host of "peers"--potentially every sort of computing device from desktops to tiny cell phones to mammoth servers. Jxta will allow services to be run across this distributed network of devices. Joy said in February it would likely be incorporated into its grand "Sun One" software strategy, a program that competes with the .Net vision of Sun's perpetual foe, Microsoft. Sun unveiled Jxta at a conference about "peer-to-peer" technology that joins computers without reliance on a central server. However, Sun conspicuously avoids mentioning the once-hyped buzzword in its news release.