Sun Microsystems plans to unveil a new product family that competes with Microsoft's Silverlight, Adobe's Apollo and the Ajax programming technique. 

Java FX products will address the rich internet application market across mobile devices, desktop computers and TV set-top boxes.

The company is expected to unveil the new family at the JavaOne conference on 8 May. 

Java FX is centred around developer tools for which Sun has yet to determine a release date.

The tools are designed to make it easier to create rich internet applications. The underlying technology is similar to today's Java desktop software, with the addition of a single library.

Java FX also includes a new operating system for mobile phones that allows Java FX applications to run, as well as a new Java FX scripting language. All components will be released under an open source licence.

Jeffrey Hammond, a senior analyst with Forrester Research, described the unveiling as a "pretty big announcement". 

"The major vendors have to realise that rich internet application development is going to be a very strategic technology for companies," he told vnunet.com.

"Sun has put a stake in the ground and said that Java FX is what people need for rich internet application development."

Hammond expects the technology to play especially well with enterprise developers who are already used to programming with Java and have created relatively few rich internet applications.

Such applications refer to online services in which the behaviour and interactivity mimic those of desktop applications.

A static internet application behaves more like a regular web page, requiring users to click on regular links to interact with the application.

Java FX intends to allow application architects to craft online applications by dragging and dropping images, eliminating the need to manually write code.

They will be able to create animated buttons, for instance, by dragging images directly from Photoshop.

The technique is built on the same foundations for regular Java applications, allowing developers to use all the features that the platform offers.

An Ajax FX service, for instance, can access system resources such as a CD-Rom, or can function when no internet connection is present.

Security is guaranteed because Java applications execute in a so-called sandbox mode that shields the Java software from all other system resources.

Microsoft is working on a rich internet application platform with its Silverlight technology that is currently in beta.