Oracle Announces Java 8

Revolutionary Java SE 8 Release Features the Most Significant Upgrade to the Java Programming Model Ever; Java SE 8 and Java ME 8 Together Make Major Steps toward Long-Term Convergence

Kuala Lumpur, 26 March 2014 – Oracle Corporation (NYSE: ORCL), the world's leading IT solution provider, today announces the availability of Java Platform, Standard Edition 8 (Java SE 8), Java Platform, Micro Edition 8 (Java ME 8) and the related releases of Oracle’s Java Embedded products.
The Java SE 8 and Java ME 8 are on a strong convergence path, with Java ME 8 scheduled for availability later this spring.

Nandini Ramani, vice president of development, Java Platform, Oracle says, “Java is the global standard for developing and delivering applications everywhere – from small devices to the Cloud. The convergence of Java SE 8 and Java ME 8 is intended to provide a consistent development environment that improves developer productivity and application performance, along with the ability to ‘right-size’ the platform for deployment across an even wider range of use cases.”

With a consistent Java 8 platform across embedded devices, desktops, data centers and the cloud, customers can deploy applications faster, process and analyze in-flight data and act on events as quickly as they occur.

Today, there are 9 million Java developers worldwide and more than 3 billion devices are powered by Java technology. Over 10 billion Java Cards have been shipped since its introduction

New Release of JDK 8 for Software Developers
For software developers, Oracle releases the Java Development Kit (JDK) 8, a production-ready implementation of the Java SE 8 Platform Specification which was recently approved through the Java Community Process (JCP), to support for developing, debugging, and monitoring Java applications.

The JDK 8 includes the largest upgrade to the Java programming model since the platform was introduced in 1996.

Together, Oracle is also announcing Oracle Java SE Embedded 8, which leverages the new Java SE 8 features and is optimized for mid to high end embedded systems. Oracle JDK 8 and Oracle Java SE Embedded 8 are now available to download.

• Java SE 8 enables enhanced developer productivity and significant application performance increases through reduced boilerplate code, improved collections and annotations, simpler parallel programming models and more efficient use of modern, multi-core processors.
• Oracle Java SE Embedded 8 provides a development platform for embedded devices and the Internet of Things (IoT) that includes the flexibility, portability and features of Java SE 8.
• Java ME 8 are designed to deliver faster application performance, which is especially important on less powerful devices. It is a major update to the existing Java ME platform incorporating a large set of updated and new features, including: Java language and API alignment with Java SE 8, support for modern web protocols, and more.

“The release of Java SE 8 demonstrates the innovation driven by the ongoing collaboration between IBM, Oracle and other members of the Java community in OpenJDK,” said John Duimovich, Distinguished Engineer, IBM. “Java SE 8 provides enterprise customers with significant gains in productivity, scalability and maintainability, and further demonstrates that they can continue to rely on Java to grow their business.”