Alternatives brews
In late August, developers gathered in London announced that Java on mobile platforms was just not living up to the promise of letting programmers "write once, run anywhere". If Java does not fulfill its promise soon, there is no shortage of alternatives.
Java 2, Micro Edition (J2ME), to put it simply, is just a development platform for mobile software. Although heavily and widely backed, it is by no means the only such solution around. Currently, J2ME's fiercest rival on the market is Qualcomm's Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless (BREW), but there are a clutch of alternatives out on the market. The big guy to watch out for is, of course, Microsoft with its .Net initiative.
Qualcomm's BREW
Qualcomm introduced BREW in February 2001 to compete with Sun's Java. Like J2ME, BREW allows cell phones to download and run small programs for playing games and other applications.
Advantages
- Processing power: J2ME, being an interpreted language that runs on a Java virtual machine, requires more processing power then BREW which runs in a native environment on the device. This gives BREW the advantage in applications which require speed and complexity, including email, location-based services, and games.
- Language specific: Whereas J2ME is language independent, BREW applications can be developed in other languages such as C, C + +, even Java.
Recent milestones
- In August, mobile operator China Unicom and Qualcomm announced an agreement under which China Unicom will by end-2002, commercially launch a new wireless application service, based on BREW, over its Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) network.
- In June, Qualcomm announced BREW 2.0 which would add increased security for mobile commerce, as well as richer multimedia capabilities.
- In March, game makers Sony Online Entertainment and THQ agreed to develop wireless entertainment applications for the BREW platform.
Microsoft's .Net Compact Framework
The .Net Compact Framework is the smart device development platform for the Microsoft .Net initiative, which enables the execution of downloadable applications on devices such as PDAs and mobile phones. .Net is Microsoft's platform for delivering Web services to a variety of connected devices based on Extensible Markup Language (XML), a system for defining specialized markup languages that are used to transmit formatted data.
Advantages
- Familiar programming model: The .Net Compact Framework uses the same programming model as the desktop .Net Framework. This makes it easier for existing developers to write new applications and to migrate portions of their code to smart devices. Visual Studio developers, which Microsoft claims number four million, will also be able to make the transition more smoothly.
- High performance: Like Qualcomm's BREW, applications running on the .Net Compact Framework are executed as native code. They will therefore run faster than J2ME programs on resource-scarce mobile devices.
Recent milestones
- In mid-April, Microsoft posted a test version of its .Net Compact Framework, along with additional mobile device tools, to its Web site.
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In February, Microsoft shipped Visual Studio.Net, a revamped package of the company's popular software development tools that include Visual Basic, Visual C++ and its new Java-like language, C#.
Niche players
Other than the offerings by Sun, Microsoft and Qualcomm, there are alternative platforms for developers. Software maker Macromedia recently put its Flash technology into portable devices. Flash is commonly used on the Web for games and animation, but the ones for phones will have to be programmed with resource limitations in mind.
England-based wireless technology provider TTPCom has also released its Wireless Graphics Engine (WGE) platform specially geared towards enhancing mobile games and man-machine interfaces (MMI). The company announced in July that Korean phone makers LG Electronics and Innostream will be employing the WGE technology.
Furthermore, developers can choose to develop applications directly for the Symbian platform. Nokia has been successful in pushing its Symbian-based Series 60 platform, which has been licensed by handset makers Matsushita, Samsung and Siemens. The combined market share of these phone makers will encourage developers to create native applications.
Battle for wireless software dominance
So who will command the wireless world? Some say it is probably premature, or even futile, to talk about a single winner. "I wouldn't say there will be a winner because there will be a lot of different winners," said Cyrille Even, general manager of Mobileway Asia Pacific, a wireless services facilitator. He pointed to the respective strengths of Sun, Microsoft and Qualcomm.
Indeed, while a few of these platforms can be seen as direct competitors, many of them also serve different purposes. Some, such as TTPCom's WGE, are ideal for gaming. Others, like J2ME and BREW, are suitable for a broad range of applications. The number of options available demonstrates the growing importance of mobile software.
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