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It has been more than a while since we have been waiting for MIDP 3.0 specs to get closed.
Now that it seems the process is going to complete, we face a java runtime distribution across the mobile world with more shades than lights: terrible fragmentation problems (that have been one of midp 3 and MSA drivers) with hundreds of different jvms across thousands of handset models and java being discouraged or, sometimes seeming to be ostracized by and emerging tech firms and platforms (apple, windows mobile, android).
At today, JME is almost the unique dev runtime for a number of important platforms like SonyEricsson, LG and Samsung RTOS, Nokia s40, Rim (with extensions): unfortunately those platforms are niche ones or, at least, candidates to be superseded by more powerful, emerging ones (like Android, Symbian or Limo based) when the chipsets families those I’ve been built for will decrease in price and consequently being adopted on low tier models.
From a strictly technical point of view, current leading JME platforms only partially suffered of MIDP3 being so late: this mainly thanks to MSA recommendations (decreasing fragmentation partially) and jsr 211 (enabling midlet2midlet and, sometimes, midlet2native interaction).
It remains a question mark about the root reason: was MIDP 3 being late forcing java developers to be not too much visionary or ambitious or, on the contrary, there was actually no particular demand, across the developers, for such a powerful solution like MIDP3 is?
The slowness of MIDP3 development have been experienced as a problem at first but soon the mobile developers moved to alternatives where possible. Probably, the hard times that Moto experienced as a company that, at the end, impacted terribly MIDP3 schedule (being Motorola the lead) led to less interest for java as a platform and, eventually, to Apple and Google to create alternatives for their compelling platforms. Despite Apple choice could be explained with the need of a closed environment, Google choice is clearly dictated by JME technology limitations since they embraced totally the Java development community and the Java language itself despite creating a sort of new profile, a mix of JSE/CDC and novel concepts (eg. Activities).
Now the question is:
- is there still space for java to be a protagonist on Mobile Internet services?
The situation is really complex.
User demands are rapidly ramping up: now users want smartphones to give access to web contents and web services, tomorrow, the access in itself will not be enough: advanced features like phonebook presence integration, integrated conversation management, contacts syncing, user context access, content management, etc… will be considered as important features to be listed in the small labels describing specs at shops.
Is Java, with it’s bytecode-VM approach not suited to integrate with “native apps” by design? Google “all apps are equal” approach will ever be applicable to a PURE java MIDP runtime? It seems acquired that the “write once, run everywhere” promise of java has not ever been true in the mobile world until now, but anyway, as said before on this blog, thanks to the evident trend pointing out that the number of platforms is decreasing and restricting to few open OSes, java has now a new chance.
Sun and oracle must now cowork with the ecosystem, bet again on open source and, in parallel, invest to create first class JVMs for open OSes an publish it on Markets. How to monetize the effort? The application store is something making more sense to me from day to day, and JavaOne recently hold at Moscone center crearly demonstrated that Java is not dead. The Mobility general session from JavaOne has been full of news, vision, hopes and last but not least has been full of explicit endorsement (Vodafone, Verizon, SonyEriccson, Google, etc…). And Larry has been there live to state that Oracle bets on Java. At the end, something that very few days ago seemed a concept and led me to some speculations, it’s now reality: take a look at the Java Store! …and Warehouse! …there’s also a beta program, even if US only 
Ah, forgot to mention that JavaFX is definitively out the “buzz-world”.
2009-2010 will be a very crucial period for JME: win or die. No niche option for java.
This post is the first that I’ve written on an android phone…Thanks G1 for existing!
I often read Jonathan Schwartz blog posts with big interest, at least since they’re as rarest than mine and, at the end, I always enjoy to see his smiling face 
Jon
I’m sure that Jon has lot more to do than me now that the new boss, that strange Larry with the sailing hobby, is on board.
On May the 18th Jon wrote this interesting post on his blog where he advocates java being the ideal candidate to become “the” application store of the next generation.
Now, I’m a bit confused. After reading the blog post a couple of times, I eventually came up to few conclusions and lots of questions that I’ll try to summarize, also encouraging you to share your views.
The application store hype comes from the mobile devices market where it was created, by a visionary like Steve Jobs, mostly due to two reasons: design a new value chain while controlling totally the product. With time passing and new mindsets facing the app store phenom, we’ ve seen lots of different ideas and, recently, with Nokia debuting as well as Google and others, we’ve a clear idea of what a mobile app store could be.
On the other hand, Mobile app store have introduced new concepts in application delivery that simply makes sense. Things like crowdsourcing application quality review, a crucial feature for every app market, or quality certification programs (like Apple does) make sense also for a desktop and notebook market, but, more important, make sense for netbooks and MIDs. Canonical working to enable Dalvik VM and Android Market for ubuntu make me think that we should give a try to Sun and Oracle for this strange idea of the world-domination-dream-java-app-market.
Anyway, the step from successful co-marketing initiatives like the ones with the toolbars, to a promise of the killer application (store) and the perfect software delivery and distribution environment is a giant size step.
But, Jon, I’ve many question from the very beginning: will this Java-Store deliver only Java apps? Will be Windows centered? or at least Desktop Centered? will embrace or be embraced by mobile platform vendors in you plans?
Is this finally the “all screen of your life” java that we are expecting since the very beginning of the Java dream?
A successful java market should exploit java pervasivity, java ease of use and outstanding adoption rate to become the central and preferred point of sales and distribution of java resources, from client applications to server components and, in general, enterprise resources.
The Java app store should be the ideal channel:
- to access cloud provided services and monitor IaaS performances
- to buy support and acquisition licenses from the commercial software providers
- to provide update and patch management services
- for open source projects to provide access to software releases
The Java app store should be accompanied with:
- an app engine/libraries set to embed Sun/Oracle IaaS in Java environment
- new partnership programs to ease the adoption and porting across different platforms (for Desktops, MIDs, Mobiles and Server technology providers)
- revenue share programs for developers
- optional software quality certifications programs
Finally I tried to manage to wrote down the following schema to help myself to figure out what the new Java market idea could be, at the end:
the java app store as it could be (click to enlarge)
Unfortunately, if you look to Runtime Bob’s latest post on Symbian Foundation blog, it seems that neither at Symbian, where Java was meant to be a first class citizen, they’ve a clear idea of what “the future of java” will be. Today Symbian dev portal has gone beta and is available for you at https://developer.symbian.org/.
Looking at the JME section it seems they are serious about Java.
Hopefully at Sun tomeone has a clearest idea of the future of java. At least at Oracle they’ve, I’m sure
Unfortunately mine is different from the one that the latest statement at Sun, i.e. that the new Java Garbace collector (G1) will be available only for support license subscribers, advocates.
Let’s see. JavaOne will probably give us some new food for thoughts.
