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How To Top Categories Computers Home Entertainment Internet Phones Photography Security Tablets ForumsLog In to CNET Join Related Stories Intel to roll out new Itanium chips July 13, 2005 Sun stirs to unify Java June 10, 2003 New cell phone Java holds promise December 18, 2002 Sun serves up Java on mobile phones September 19, 2000

When it was first introduced, Sun Microsystems’ Java software for cellular phones was supposed to let developers write a single program that could run on any handset. A half decade later, Sun’s Java for cell phones, called the mobile information device profile, or MIDP, is used in half the world’s 1.4 billion phones for downloading other bits of software. But writing a program that can run on any handset still isn’t possible.

It’s an odd by product of Java’s success in the cell phone market. Ironing out the details of software such as the MIDP takes time, and neither the cell phone Air Jordan 7s makers nor service providers have been willing to wait as they pump out the 700 million or so cell phones sold each year.

What’s new:

Sun’s Java for cell phones was supposed to let developers write a single program that could run on any handset. That’s never come to pass. Bottom line:

It’s becoming clear to Sun engineers that the ultimate goal of “write once, run anywhere” may never be fully realized because the cell phone market is simply too diverse. Still, Java has helped the industry make tremendous strides.

Instead, Nokia, Motorola and other handset makers have built devices using their own fixes for MIDP.

Though that’s understandable, since they have to deal with the immediate needs of the market, their actions have Air Jordan 13s played a major role in sullying the “write once, run anywhere” promise of MIDP, say Sun executives and developers of cell phone software. That means that the extra costs and development time associated with creating multiple versions of the same software find their way into nearly every corner of the cell phone industry, from the price of handsets to the price for downloading a ring tone.

“Fragmentation is the one major roadblock that could mean the difference between success and failure for developers embracing this market,” Allen Lau, chief technology officer at Tira Wireless, wrote in an article in the trade publication Java World.

What was billed as an oasis for developers has turned into quicksand, quipped developers attending Sun’s recent JavaOne confab in San Francisco. None were louder than representatives of Nokia, which sells about a third of the world’s cell phones, nearly every one with Java inside.

“Defragmentation remains a major issue,” Nokia Chief Technology Officer Pertti Korhonen said during a recent speech to Java developers. “We need to reduce the fragmentation effect because interoperability is critical for today’s mass market devices. We need to simplify the standard, and use open, fair and predictable licensing terms for the technology.”

Though the cell phone industry has made tremendous strides in the last two years, it’s becoming clear to engineers at Sun Air Jordan CDP that the ultimate goal of “write once, run anywhere” may never be fully realized because the cell phone market is simply too diverse, said Eric Chu, a Sun senior director who played a role in much of the early MIDP development.

Sun’s efforts to end the fragmentation problems have so far come up short. Just about every year the company has had another way to attack the problem. The latest attempt involves the Java Verified program, which Air Jordan 11s was created several months ago to certify cell phone software and ensure that it runs on different companies’ phones.

It’s a radical change from past practices, when applications had to be tested by each handset maker in order to ensure the coding was bug free and at a certain quality level. But it’s too early to say how well the new program is working.

Great promise, mixed results

The MIDP standard, based on Java 2 Micro Edition, or J2ME, was developed collaboratively by Sun and more than 20 cell phone companies. The goal was to provide the cell phone industry with a

Was Java ever “write once run anywhere”?

On desktop it wasn’t ever so. Check as an example LimeWire: all major OSs have specialized version. And there is one generic version. Integration with OS is the key. Java integrates Air Jordan 2010 with nothing it is OS on its own and, may I add, quite dumb one. ()

And this collapse of “write once run somewhere” hit me too: I wanted to use some application on my iBook, when it turns out that it requires Java 1.5 and Java 1.5 has new version of bytecode so it will (most likely) never ever run on my iBook equipped with Java 1.4. Sun’s JRE doesn’t support Mac OS X. Apple going to release Java 1.5 only for Max OS X Tiger, but not for Panther. Go figure who to blame: Sun for its overbloated technology; Apple which has no resources to port another great bloatware from Sun to all OS it supports; or application developers who had fallen into “Java Trap” (c) RMS.

Thru all the hype Sun had created, I do not see any good use to Java. On desktop side it is just unusable. On embedded it is just too bloated and slow. Well, on server side people like it. But only with application servers (middleware) most of other applications run much better under specialized systems. Biggest server use case Web seems definitely to like PHP more than Java.