Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, who is soon to own Sun Microsystems, made a cameo appearance at JavaOne Tuesday to reassure the faithful of his continued investment in their pet language.

And to those naysayers who figure Oracle's going to dump the hardware side of Sun, guess again.

Ellison said he's thinking of building a variety of devices because of his upcoming $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun including a Java-based netbook or MID, perhaps a smartphone or two.

Of course he also proposed the ill-fated NC years ago.

The move would put him in more competition than if he just used Sun hardware to advance Oracle software.

Other that that, he said, "I don't expect a lot of changes" at Sun. (Oh, Larry, say it ain't so.)

It was the first time Ellison spoke publicly about the acquisition since it was announced.