When I caught up with Sun CTO Bob Brewin a few weeks ago at AjaxWorld, I wasn’t expecting to talk about telephones. But that was exactly what Brewin had on his mind as he promoted Sun’s software stack for Rich Internet Applications (RIAs), JavaFX.

That’s because JavaFX lets developers create programs that can be ported unchanged to PCs, music and video players, game consoles TV set-top boxes and…phones.

Kinda makes you think of the Apple iPhone. But Brewin is aiming higher than the iPhone, although he carries one. The iPhone is useful as an example of how to take a potentially good thing and miss the mark.

“Apple and ATT created this complete user experience and then they hamstrung it,” comments Brewin, referring to the fact that Apple strictly limits the programs that can run on the iPhone and, until recently, the device only worked on ATT’s mobile network.

“How long do you think that’s going to last?” he continues. “Already in Asia there are companies coming out with iPhone equivalents. What’s missing is the software. Coming from Sun, I’m a huge fan of open source and open standards. [Apple’s] walled garden approach has fundamental limits. In a year or two there will be a large number of competitors to Apple.”

Add up the facts that handset manufacturers are rushing to copy the iPhone, mobile carriers are looking to compete with the ATT/iPhone early entry advantage, and Sun’s JavaFX software that just happens to bring any application you want to a smartphone. It doesn’t take a genius to come up with…a Sun Phone.

Sun currently is testing handsets with mobile carriers and Brewin declines to talk about delivery dates other than to say “as soon as humanly possible.” Talk is that Sun is working with Samsung to develop the JavaFX phone, but no one is commenting.

But one thing consumers can count on: When it hits the market, the SunPhone will work with any carrier you want. And it will do VoIP out of the box.

Software-as-a-service company Skyytek apparently isn’t listening to Gartner’s nay saying about corporate iPhone use. The company is adopting the iPhone for its mobile employees and is testing it with its on-demand ERP/CRM system, NetSuite. What’s also interesting here is ERP as a mobile phone app. Read Skyytec’s evaluation here.

Another company bringing business apps to the phone is Swedish software company HansaWorld. New offerings for the UK market for PDAs and Nokia business phones include credit card payment processing and filing your income tax.

If you’re an AT&T Pro, Elite and FastAccess customer you now have free WiFi access at any AT&T hotspot. Other customers get access for $1.99 a month. Fierce Broadband Wireless seems to think that iPhone customers are excluded.

TCM Net has launched a new channel on Voice Peering. The value proposition here is connecting calls without touching the PSTN.

Jajah for the iPhone — not! So says Scott Gilbertson of Wired.

Rumor Mill: Full 3G iPhone service by Christmas according to virtual journalist Robert X. Cringley.

Global businesses have big plans for mobile handsets. That’s according to UK research firm Coleman Parkes Research. Seven out of 10 expect to be using mobile VoIP within two years and many are already a variety of business applications. But with the new flexibility comes a whole new dimension of security and management challenges. Robert Jacques at vunet.com has the story.

But while businesses see huge benefits to mobile VoIP, mobile carriers have been circling the wagons, blocking mobile VoIP calls and writing restrictive terms into their contracts. Now UK mobile VoIP provider Vyke is fighting back with a standalone software upgrade that circumvents the removal of handset VoIP capabilities by carriers.

“The incumbent mobile network operators must be feeling very threatened by mobile VoIP,” observed Vyke Communications CEO Kjetil Bøhn in today’s press release. “In the short amount of time that this immerging technology has been in the market, they have already responded by removing VoIP capabilities from mobile handsets that they sell and by introducing very restrictive contract terms prohibiting their customers from using their networks to access services such as VoIP and third party peer-to-peer messaging clients. Vyke has been dedicating itself to circumventing these obstructionist tactics by developing our own stand-alone mobile VoIP application as well as providing access to large scale wireless networks on behalf of our customers.”

Even sweeter for customers, Vyke’s agreement last month with WiFi hotspot provider The Cloud Networks gives subscribers free access through any of the Cloud’s 9,500 UK and European hotspots.

Spanish WiFi company Fon says it has given away 7,000 routers to people living next to a Starbucks to encourage them to provide free or cheap Internet access to the ubiquitous café’s customers. Not surprisingly, the program is called Fonbucks. Mark Kapco at RCR Wireless News has the story.

Last week Truphone announced a whole slew of new features including SMS over IP for unlimited free texting, automatic WiFi network connection, and support for multiple SIM cards.

Steve Jobs has a solution for the AT&T’s sluggish Internet connection, which he outlined in a June 29 Wall Street Journal interview: “What we’ve done with the iPhone is we’ve made it so that it will automatically switch to a known Wi-Fi network whenever it finds it. So you don’t have to go hunting around, resetting the phone, flipping a switch or doing anything. Most of us have Wi-Fi networks around us most of the time at home and at work. There’s often times a Wi-Fi network that you can join whether you’re sitting in a coffee shop or even walking along the street piggybacking on somebody’s home Wi-Fi network. What we found is the combination is working really well.”

I particularly like the part about piggybacking on someone else’s home network. Sounds like the wonder boy of Cupertino lives in a separate ethical universe from the rest of us mere mortals. One where it might be OK to, say, share music online without paying iTunes $.99.

Industry disruption specialist Jajah is jumping on the Apple iPhone bandwagon to promote its mobile Jajah service. This isn’t anything new, but it’s certainly timely to remind customers — if they can get the iPhone service connected, of course — that there is an alternative to AT&T’s extortionate rates.

Given the Apple iPhone build-up, I was surprised to wake up this morning and find the world pretty much the same as it was yesterday, before Steve Jobs and his iPhone opened to us the promised land of infinite coolness.

Even my 16 year-old, a graduate student in the school of cool, found the advent of the iPhone a “whatever.” Perhaps it’s his experience with two iPods that died promptly after the warranty ran out that gives him a healthy distrust of Apple’s newest toy. Now he plays music on his $99 Razr phone.

It seems we’re not the only doubters. Today New York Times Business columnist Joe Nocera joined the fray as a skeptic, taking a close look at the iPhone’s non-replaceable battery and its snails-pace Internet access (to reduce battery drain, no less!). Nocera also describes the Kafta-esque experience of talking to Apple’s PR drones.

The Foundation for Taxpayer & Consumer Rights also took a look at the iPhone and found it wanting. In addition to the battery problem, the Foundation notes that AT&T and Apple have written a whopping $175 cancellation fee into the contract if you terminate within two years – as you might be tempted to when the battery’s likely one-year useful life runs out.

For the record, my four year-old Palm Treo may be the apogee of un-cool, but the battery has not needed replacement yet.

As might be expected, even before the Apple iPhone hits retailer shelves, its sexy features are showing up on other handsets. Like visual voicemail. German company SimulScribe just announced a “downloadable visual voicemail application” — SimulSays Beta — for the BlackBerry 8800 series, BlackBerry Pearl, BlackBerry Curve and Windows Mobile. The service normally starts at $10 a month, but the beta is free. However, in its rush to get the news out, SimulScribe appears to have forgotten to put the info on the website.

Dual mode phones just might be crossing the chasm and T-Mobile may be positioning itself for a spot at the head of the pack. This week the company launched the T-Mobile(R) HotSpot @HomeSM service. And coming along for the ride is the Nokia 6086 dual mode phone, also announced today. At home and in hotspots, calls are made over the WiFi network. Leave the hotspot, and calls automatically go through T-Mobile’s GSM/GPRS/EDGE wireless network. The press release lets you infer that the handoff is seamless, but I’m dubious because it doesn’t say it directly.

And speaking of WiFi, Mountain View, CA-based startup WeFi is opening up the beta of its WiFi community. WeFi helps you find and connect to free WiFi hotspots as well as keeping track of keys for locked and for-fee services.

If your idea of meal planning is ordering Chinese takeout, this isn’t for you. But for those of us who have wished we could look up a recipe for an item that’s on sale, Allrecipe.com’s new mobile service is just the ticket. Just type “Mobile.Allrecipes.com” into the phone’s Web browser.

Packet8 is sweetening the pot for customers, especially Virtual Office business customers, with “digital courier service” from YouSendIt.com, that makes it easy to send very large files electronically. It’s designed for files like video that can’t be sent via email, but it also works well for sending photos and large documents. I use it to send audio files of interviews to the archivist at my local library, and can attest to the ease of use.

It had to happen: iPlayboy widget for your Apple iPhone. Now do you want to buy one?