Parlay Entertainment Ltd, an Ontario-based online bingo application developer, has been building Java-based online bingo games since 1996. Parlay’s CTO Perry Malone says that they will continue building on Java, both because of the cross-platform compatibility and because of Sun Microsystems’ commitment to open source software.

Parlay has recently migrated all of their internal web applications to Sun’s applications. While open source makes programming easier for Parlay’s development staff, there is some concern over Java’s overall uniformity and inter-compatibility. Currently, resources from Apache’s Tomcat integrate instantly with Java applets. Software developers like Parlay hope that Sun will be able to keep Java from splintering into different versions as Linux has.

In the meantime, Parlay is constantly designing new bingo games and improving its current online bingo environment. Some new improvements with Parlay’s instant-play online bingo software include the option of starting side games with a chat-master. Parlay staff hopes that Sun’s release of J2SE (Java 2 standard edition) version 5.0 will provide a more user-friendly environment, as the platform lacks the usability of other programming options.