I'd more or less given up on mobile Java being relevant for anything other than occasional gaming downloads. It just doesn't seem to have made the jump to anything remotely "mission critical" on handsets. Numerous initiatives like SavaJe's seem to have disappeared without trace.
But suddenly, a few separate discussions have referenced the very unglamorous acronym JSR281, which is the proposed Java extension that would give a Java app access to IMS capabilities on a device. This could be a good way to circumvent the woeful lack of standards around mobile handset IMS client frameworks. So, potentially, an innovative developer could write a cool messaging application or interactive game in Java, exploiting JSR281 APIs, without having to expensively port it to the various bits of proprietary on-handset IMS software middleware from NMS, Ericsson, Ecrio, Movial, Comneon, Qualphone & all the others.
It's unclear exactly when JSR281-enabled phones will ship, but my bet is Q3-2008 for massmarket devices, perhaps with a few high-end ones a bit earlier. That probably means that decent 3rd-party applications to exploit Java-IMS combinations on phones will start to appear in early 2009.
Dean Bubley's Disruptive Wireless: Thought-leading wireless industry analysis
Opera Mini, Google Maps, and Gmail are all excellent J2ME apps for phones.
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IMS to me is about two things: rich seamless multimedia communication across PC, Mobile, and other devices. The first time this can be done on JSR enabled handsets will be more like 2015 than 2008. Basic SIP registration, message etc will be done, but I even doubt there will be anything like full OMA XDMS, Presence, OMA SIMPLE IM API's in all handsets. This means, yet another platform for us client vendors to support instead of just going native in the first place.
ReplyDeleteI dont think, JSR281 compliant IMS enabled handsets are going to take that long. JSR281 is being reapidly standardized as an IMS client by the OMA, and we may see it soon.
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