Ericsson: JavaOne: Taking mobile application development out of the niche

Java and mobility enthusiast and visionary C. Enrique Ortiz gives his thoughts on why mobile application development is still a niche activity for developers, and what the hot topics about mobility will be at JavaOne.

Ericsson's representative in the Executive Committee for Java ME, Magnus Olsson, recommended that the Ericsson Mobility World Develop Program should get the views of the visionary C. Enrique Ortiz, to get a feel for what is hot when it comes to mobile Java.

Ortiz describes himself as a mobilist, “for fun and profit”. He is co-founder and CTO of eZee, a mobile marketing platform company. Since 1997, when he realized that that mobile computing was going to become huge, he has been involved in developing everything from local Java-based clients to end-to-end mobile web technology. Through the years, he has also been a member of several Java standardization committees and Java Specification Request (JSR) expert groups related to mobile and wireless technology.

At JavaOne 2008, Ortiz was supposed to host a Birds of Feather session (BOF-6541) to discuss the need for an independent third-party Mobile Developer Alliance, together with Terrence Barr from Sun and Sean Sheedy, a mobile applications consultant. However, he has been forced to cancel his participation and Terrence Barr, of Sun Microsystems, will take his place on the session panel.

BOF-6541, “Strengthening Your Voice: Do We Need a Mobile Developer Alliance?”, will be held on Tuesday May 6, 7:30pm to 8:20pm.

What was your main message going to be at the session?
So, we have this idea of what we call a Mobile Developer Alliance: an independent non-profit third-party entity that can bring issues like fragmentation and go-to-market challenges to the attention of carriers, the Java community, and handset manufacturers. The problem with the existing committees and standardization groups is that they are made up of representatives from different, and often competing, companies with their own special interests and issues. So even if difficulties for developers in creating applications are recognized by these groups, they cannot do much because the members must see to the interests of their company.

Terrence Barr will lead the session around issue of how such a third-party organization of developers could promote and find solutions to various problems facing mobile application developers.

Can you describe some of the challenges that are facing developers who want to enter the mobile space?
The mobile space has a number of challenges, particularly for developers. These challenges have to do with how fragmented this space is when it comes to Java – it behaves differently on different devices – and with how hard it is to bring mobile applications to market. You need to do more than develop your application, you might also have to engage with carriers in order to deploy the application and distribute it. Many developers are really not familiar with these types of challenges.

So, mobile application development is still a niche activity for developers. Not everyone has the prerequisites to enter this space. It really requires time, patience and money to get going and make profit from mobile application development. That said, it is not the end of the world, right. You can really create Java applications that are compelling, both local applications and simple mobile web applications.

Which do you think will the hot topics be at JavaOne, when it comes to mobile application development?
Well, there are a couple things that I am hoping will get a lot of attention. There is JSR-248, the Mobile Service Architecture (MSA). This is an umbrella specification which is intended to alleviate the fragmentation problem and ensure that Java Micro Edition (ME) behaves as consistently as possible on as many mobile devices as possible. I am really hoping that MSA gets a lot of backing from both handset manufacturers and carriers so that we can take a step forward in solving this problem.

Another thing that I hope gets a lot of attention is the use of Near Field Communication (NFC) on mobile devices. [NFC is a technology for short-range wireless communication between electronic devices. Applications include contactless transactions such as payment and transit ticketing, calendar synchronization, electronic business card transfer, and marketing.] This is a technology which I believe will have huge practical benefits to everyone when it becomes widely adopted.
There is a standard API (JSR-257, Contactless Communication API) but only a few phones that support NFC. NFC is where Bluetooth was 10 years ago, so it will take some time until this technology becomes widespread.

By Olle Blomberg