Vikram Goyal's Blog

November 2005 Archives

What bugs you about J2ME?

In a post from couple of days back, I blogged about the massive market that Nokia has announced for J2ME applications. The comments on that post are mostly pessimistic. Most developers are unhappy with the state of J2ME, with anger directed towards Operators, Manufacturers and Sun equally. This is not an isolated case. Previously, when I had blogged about raising interest in J2ME, I had got the same complaints.

So what is wrong with J2ME? What would you like it to do? What are, as developers and companies, our options? More importantly, what are the solutions to make it a dominant player in the handheld applications market?

Maybe, if we verbalize our angst enough, we will get solutions.

I look forward to the comments.

Handy tool for Mobile Device Information

Any J2ME developer knows that the promise of write once and run anywhere, like the J2SE promise, is based on marketing genius and little, if any, factual grounds in reality. If anything, it is, worse for J2ME (or Sun Java ME) because there are so many different manufacturers/operators and implementations that it is practically impossbile to put your application out without actually trying your application out on those said devices.

With this in mind, the Mobile Device Information project being run on java.net is an excellent, comprehensive and searchable source of information for different devices. It is a Java application that is run via Java Web Start, uses the WURFL database and is maintained by Jim McLachlan.

If you have Java installed on your machine, you can run the file here. The homepage for the project is here.

I want a piece of the pie

While everybody, and I mean everybody, is talking about the coming death of Java and the demise of Struts, nobody seems to be realizing that their is a new frontier on the Java horizon.

Java ME (or J2ME whatever you prefer).

Ok, so it isn't new and it isn't perfect. But I am gob smacked by the numbers published by Nokia. More on this later.

I find it debatable that Java on the desktop or the Server is dead or dying. Yes, Java for beginners is tougher now. That is the sign of a mature language, not one that is dying or dead. Yes, I am confused about where it is going, but that doesn't mean that I am ready to ditch it for the current flavor of the month, even if it is Ruby on Drugs.

Java on desktop and server is mature and thriving. There are lesser markets to explore. But there are newer frontiers that represent opportunity.

Take the Nokia announcement. Some snippets:

- More than 180 operators are now deploying Java services.

- 708 million mobile Java devices had shipped as of June.

- 635 models of mobile Java devices are offered.

- 32 mobile device vendors use Java technology.

- More than 45,000 Java applications are on the market.

- Approximately 23 million mobile Java downloads have been performed each month this year.

and to cap it all:

"Nokia forecasts that developer revenue from mobile Java applications on Nokia devices will reach 340 million euros this year."

Wow. If that is not an awe inspiring, swear by Java, renounce all other languages moment, then I don't know what is. Quick, somebody get me on line to Nokia.

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