China Unicom, the country's second largest mobile operator, announced yesterday that it has formed a strategic alliance with US-based Sun Microsystems Corp and Beijing ZRRT Communications Technology Co Ltd to further promote wireless data applications and services based on Java technology.

"By establishing the alliance, we are aiming to accelerate the development of wireless data business based on our CDMA (code division multiple access) networks,'' said Lu Jianguo, vice-president of the China Unicom Group.

"We welcome more enterprises to join us,'' he said yesterday at a press conference in Beijing.

This is the another substantial move as the company pursues the wireless data market following its establishment of a joint venture in February with US-based Qualcomm Inc. The joint venture allows China Unicom access to Qualcomm's Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless (BREW) platform.

According to Lu, the company will capitalize on the alliance advantages of Java technology to roll out more wireless data services to customers.

Invented by Sun Microsystems in 1995, Java technology lets devices of all kinds run just about any kind of programme such as Windows 9x, Windows NT, Solaris and Linux.

So far, there are 53 telecom operators worldwide which have adopted Java technology.

With the establishment of the alliance, China Unicom is set to kick off its Java-based wireless service under the brand name of "UniJa,'' Lu said.

In the first phase, a total of 1.5 million CDMA users will benefit from the "UniJa'' service, he said.

ZRRT will be the only designated solution provider for UniJa, but will also play the role of a connector who will link up with the whole Java-based wireless data value chain.

China Unicom has recruited about 15 million CDMA subscribers so far.

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