Users of handheld devices and PDAs that run PalmSource's PalmOS
will soon be able to access a variety of Java-based applications
through PalmSource's partnership with Insignia Solutions, the
companies said at the TechXNY show in New York.
PalmSource also announced it is working on browser and VPN (virtual
private network) software to allow corporations to make greater use
of handheld devices.
The two companies are working together to integrate the Insignia
Mobile Foundation, a Java Virtual Machine (JVM), with the PalmOS,
in order to spur Java application development for Palm OS
handhelds, Michael Mace, chief competitive officer for PalmSource,
said. JVMs allow Java applications to run natively on any machine,
as if they were created for that machine.
The two companies will make the JVM available to licencees in the
second half of 2002, Mace said. It will be distributed through
Palm's licencees for a fee, but Mace declined to specify how much
it would cost, saying the licencees will work out the particulars
of distributing it to their customers.
"We've worked with Insignia for some time, and we feel they have an
efficient implementation of Java," Mace said. However, the
companies do not have an exclusive relationship. Insignia is
working to make its JVM available on other platforms, such as
Microsoft's Pocket PC, and Palm is considering other JVMs for Palm
OS 5, he said.
"We feel Insignia's product will become the standard for Java on
the handheld, that's why we're endorsing it now," Mace said.
The JVM is based on the forthcoming PDA Profile and the J2ME (Java
2, Micro Edition) standard. The PDA Profile is a standard set of
Java APIs (application programming interfaces), which are
programming tools that developers use in applications to make
requests of an operating system or another application.
A group of vendors including PalmSource, Sun Microsystems,
Motorola, Research in Motion and others are in late-stage
development with PDA Profile, Mace said. The JVM probably won't be
shipped until PDA Profile is complete, but it could ship without
official certification, he said.
The announcement should be welcomed by the Java community, which
now has additional outlets for its applications, Andy Seybold,
analyst and consultant for The Andrew Seybold Group, said. There
are many more Palm devices currently in use than Java-enabled
devices, he said.
"Palm is saying they are interested in the Java community," unlike
Microsoft and Qualcomm, which promote their own application
development platforms over Java, he said. Microsoft's Pocket PC and
Qualcomm's BREW (Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless) operating
systems support Java applications, but encourage development of
applications for their native operating systems, he said.
The largest growth in Java applications will probably come from
in-house developers creating handheld applications for their own
corporations, Mace said. Developers creating applications for
commercial sale should stick to developing on Palm OS, because
they'll see greater performance, he said.
Including a standard JVM will allow developers to create one
consistent Java application, Mark Richards, president of the New
England Java Users Group and chief architect at Apex Consulting
Group, said. Other JVMs exist for the Palm OS, but any developer
who wanted to write a Java application for the Palm previously
would have to bundle that particular JVM with the application for
it to run correctly, he said.
By bundling one standard JVM with Palm OS, developers can
confidently create the "write once, read anywhere" applications
that define the Java programming language, he said.
Palm also announced that it is developing a browser for PalmOS with
help from Access Systems America. Code from Access System's
NetFront browser will be integrated into the Palm OS 5 browser,
which will allow secure online transactions using SSL (Secure
Sockets Layer) technology. It will support current Web standards,
such as the latest versions of HTML, XHTML, JavaScript, and other
standards set by the World Wide Web Consortium.
However, browsers aren't the way to bring Internet functionality to
handhelds, Seybold said. Instead, users should be able to access
the Internet from the applications already on their PDAs. For
example, by clicking on a calendar entry for an airline flight,
users could go to an airline's home page and check flight times, he
said.
"Extending the desktop experience to mobile devices is not going to
work, they are two different experiences," he said.
Richards agreed, from a user standpoint, but thinks it would be too
difficult to develop applications without a common browser
interface. Developers would then have to create different
applications for each handheld operating system, he said.