At this week's JavaOne conference in San Francisco, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison raised the idea of creating Java-based netbooks.

"The expansion into computers is considered a logical offshoot by Ellison given Sun's experience in hardware and other fields outside of Oracle's preferred database apps," according to Electronista. "'I don't see why some of those [netbook] devices shouldn't come from Sun-Oracle,' he said."

"Ellison threw his full support behind Java, reminding the crowd at JavaOne that Oracle's middleware makes good use of Java," writes CNET's Lance Whitney. "He called it an 'attractive platform' because of its openness and the ability to extend it. 'Everything that sits on top of our database - all our products - are Java-based,' he said. He added that Oracle's whole next generation of business applications is built entirely on Java."

More here from PC World ... more here from The Register ... and more here from the WSJ.