Simon Ritter is head of Java technology evangelism at Oracle. Ritter has been in the IT business since 1984 and holds a BSc in physics from Brunel University in the U.K. Originally working in the area of UNIX development for AT&T UNIX System Labs and then Novell, Ritter moved to Sun in 1996. At that time he started working with Java technology and has spent time working both in Java technology development and consultancy. Having moved to Oracle as part of the Sun acquisition, Ritter now focuses on the core Java platform and Java for client applications. He also continues to develop demonstrations that push the boundaries of Java for applications like gestural interfaces.