Simon’s Blog

For more than half a decade, the Java ME community has held enormous promise. Sun Microsystems has created an amazing mobile software development platform - Java ME. Mobile handset makers such as Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, and RIM are building increasingly feature-rich handsets such that all the amazing features can be accessed by Java developers in standardized ways. Mobile carriers like Verizon, Vodafone, T-Mobile and Orange have invested billions to build wireless networks with amazing technologies that bring broadband speeds to mobile phones. Truly, the possibilities for mobile phone software are limitless. Except for one thing. All this technology, provided by all these great companies, simply doesn’t work together as advertised. In fact, it’s not just that it doesn’t work as advertised; it’s that it’s really rather badly crippled, from both technological and business standpoints.

The point is this… if you want to write a feature-rich mobile application using Java ME; an application that runs well on many different devices, and provides a great end-user experience, then - Good luck! I say, “good luck,” because frankly, it’s impossible to do; and it’s cost-prohibitive for many to even try.

There are initiatives such as the Java Verified Program which are trying to make things better. However, even these fall far short of actually solving the problems. These type of initiatives falls into the category of being “promising”, just as all the other parts of the Java ME community are. All the the community leaders I’ve mentioned in this blog entry are trying to court developer attention, but I’m afraid their time is almost up. There’s huge good will out there, but really - there’s only so much hassle and expense developers will put up with.

The bottom line, then, is this: it’s time for these companies to stop promising, and actually deliver. All this stuff should have been sorted out five years ago - honestly, it’s not rocket science. So, here’s a prediction for you: if all the major problems (both technological and business) with enabling amazing Java ME apps to be put in people’s hands at low cost aren’t resolved soon, they never will be. Why? Because all the great developers will have moved on to something else, and there won’t be any point in them continuing to try.

By the way, the only losers in that scenario will be the companies currently involved in the Java ME community. The winners? Microsoft and Apple (and maybe Adobe). Makes me wonder why they don’t get their acts together. Perhaps they can’t actually see that the train is about to leave the station…