As most people probably know Sun Microsystems changed its NASDAQ ticker symbol from SUNW to JAVA just a few weeks ago. That change elicited quite a lot of internal comment and relatively little external comment. The more obvious issues raised were, I believe: whether this signalled a major strategic shift at Sun (no); whether Solaris package naming conventions would change too (no); whether not subscribing to the value of Java would be career limiting at Sun (for a while); and whether Sun's customers would care (probably not). The more subtle issues include things like whether a customer seeing a Java label on a third party product would recognise Sun's role in delivering that product (no) and what the word Java...