Unless you’re a geek or simply a program, the places that you’re likely to encounter Java is on your browser and your mobile phone. Sun is planning a revamp of it’s current line up and is working to eventually replace the mobile-specific version of the software.

“We’re trying to converge everything to the Java SE specification. Cell phones and TV set-top boxes are growing up,” Sun Vice President James Gosling said. “That convergence is going to take years.”Sun will slowly phase out Java Micro Edition (ME) and allow it’s functions to be absorbed into Java Standard Edition (SE) to cope with more powerful hardware on mobile devices. After all it’s not at all reasonable to run a lightweight version of Java when your device can run everything.

Spearheading the trend is Sun’s new JavaFX Mobile, which is from the SavaJe acquisition, and is something that the company hopes mobile phone makers will embrace. Almost everything you see in JSE is packed into JavaFX Mobile with some major truncations.

While migration to Java SE won’t happen overnight, Rich Green, Sun’s executive vide president of software, said he expects smart phones using various pared-down versions of Java to stay in the market for at least a decade. For Gosling though, “All the work in Java ME had been pushing it closer and closer to Java SE.”