Software Everywhere — David Beers on Mobile Computing

The big news in mobile software this week is Motorola's decision to open the source of its Java ME MIDP 3.0 implementation and--best of all--a testing framework for MIDP 3.0. With MIDP 3.0 (JSR-271) mobile Java looks like it's finally catching up with the capabilities of the powerful phones and handheld devices it runs on. The enhanced profile looks surprisingly "grown up" for those of us who have been laboring under the limitations of MIDP for so long. From Motorola's new site at opensource.motorola.com:


In short, Motorola, which has led the development of the new spec, is gunning to make Java ME much closer in capabilities to the native runtime environment. Recalling that Motorola failed in its bid last Fall to acquire PalmSource and its native Linux application framework-in-progress, I'd speculate that staying the course by building on Java was their Plan B all along.

It's a pretty good Plan B. For one thing, as fragmented as mobile Java has become, mobile Linux has the potential to be even worse. That all depends on how successful multiple industry initiatives like MLI, LiPS, and CELF are in coming up with a common specification. The jury is still out, but I'm forced to wonder: if industry players are as interested as they say they are in getting behind standards for mobile Linux why are they creating so many separate and overlapping standards bodies?

Motorola is also trying to deal as seriously as they can with the troublesome incompatibilities among Java ME implementations. When Sun released the original specification for J2ME they left it to others to develop their own implementations without ever creating a public test suite against which these implementations would need to run to receive certification. Motorola doesn't control the certification process, but by opening up this reference platform along with the Gatling testing framework they stand a good chance of forming a stricter de facto standard for MIDP 3.0 implementations. The release of the testing tools and test suites is, I think, of even greater significance than the new MIDP reference platform. If Nokia makes their Java implementations compliant with Moto's test suite (and I suspect they will) my guess is that others will follow. Then we'll have gone a long way toward addressing the biggest problem facing developers: that testing and debugging Java applications on hundreds of phones takes far, far longer than developing the features being tested.

I've been meaning to write for some time about how far solutions like J2ME Polish have gone toward resolving the fragmentation of Java ME. My hat is still off to them for making device compatibility a much more manageable issue for MIDP 1.0 and 2.0 developers. But if Motorola is successful in leading the charge to stricter standards of compliance in future versions of Java ME this will do more to extend Java as a full-fledged mobile computing environment than anyone else has done to date.

The already intense level of mobile platform competition just notched up once again.