Before Sun's current management leaves the building, it's going to open an iPhone-like Java Store where Sun-vetted third-party apps can be sold or traded.

Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz, back blogging again now that the company's been sold, calls the scheme Project Vector and imagines developers eventually bidding for position and Sun charging for distribution and delivery direct to the desktop. (JavaFX bypasses potentially hostile browsers.)

Given Java's ubiquity, he imagines it having an audience of a billion, "just about the world's largest," he muses.

Details to follow at JavaOne in June, where, given Jonathan's rather broad hint, Java's prospective new owner Larry Ellison is likely to show up. He might like the Java Store idea - heck, for all we know it's his - because it seems PC-directed.