There was quite a buzz at this year's Wireless Java conference, organized by Marcus Evans telecom(www.metelecoms.com), as the industry gathered at Stamford Bridge, the home of Chelsea football club. While last year's conference examined the potential of Java as a serious mobile development language, the feeling here mirrored that of Roman Abramovich's Chelsea FC, where the potential for real success was more realistic than twelve months ago. Where as the football clubs new owner's millions have provided the platform for success, Java MIDP has begun to mature in to a more viable proposition. As awareness increases, so has revenue. Many speakers drew the analogy of their revenue streams to those of a hockey stick curve; after a long lead-time revenues were now starting to turn upwards.

Although much of this year's conference naturally focused on MIDP 2.0, many delegates were concerned with fragmentation across the platform. Standardisation was the one of the main themes and the adoption of the Java Technology for the Wireless Industry (JTWI, JSR 185 ) cannot come soon enough for some operators as they are faced with an ever-increasing number of Java capable devices. There is also a sense that although Java has previously been seen as a mobile games platform, the time is coming where other services such as consumer utilities and more enterprise development is required to consolidate it. Giving end users some elements of ubiquity and portability where they can carry out a range of tasks on a range of devices, be it a mobile phone, PC or TV.

Certainly, as Carl Taylor, Head of Content at '3', pointed out, awareness of Java is growing. It is appearing in Sunday supplements under the heading of "things you need to know", and also in more mainstream technical magazines. He surmised, "Java is well on the way to becoming a mass-market proposition". But he issued a warning to developers that Java content is one of many things competing for the consumer?s attention, and that for it to be successful Java downloads had to work the first time and work well, to maintain users interest. He continued that, MIDP 2.0 would not really be used in earnest until Q4, 2004, and that CLDC 1.1 would really provide developers with an environment they can fully develop stimulating content with the addition of floating point, and weak references.

The Symbian OS roadmap and the Java community process also provide the vision for developers to see where the technology is going, outlined Carl Taylor. Revenue will come with integrating with other technologies, such as web services and making the use of the mobile network. This was a feeling echoed by Simon Dean, Head of UK Games Business at O2. Networked applications prolong the life of a MIDlet and increase ARPU. Other innovations such as integration with web services and the provision of value added games such as those with SMS capability, where gamers can 'chat' or 'taunt' each other during game play. Applications such as car racing games add value, where users can register their lap times on score boards, and then challenge other users by 'ghost racing' against their times or just posting better times. They found that during a short survey in January 2004, that 46% of their users posted to a high score table, indicating such services have real potential.

Many of the operators present such Vodaphone, Optimus and O2 all demonstrated the power of branded content. It provides the customer with some level of confidence and introduces gamers to mobile gaming. Once they have navigated to an operator's portal, they see familiar branded titles such 'Tiger Woods Golf PGA Tour Golf' or 'FIFA Football 2004 Mobile International Edition' and 'John Clancy's Splinter Cell'. Branded content also sits comfortably with non-branded content. O2 showed that out of their top 20 downloaded games, half of them were non-branded and accounted for between 50 and 60% all downloads.

We spoke to Jonathan Allin, Java Product Manager for Symbian, and asked him why Symbian were attending the conference. He replied, "To listen with two ears and to speak with one mouth. Or to be more pragmatic we want to communicate our approach to Java and what we are trying to do, but also to listen to the needs of the various groups in the value chain."

This was certainly reflected in the general attituide around the floor where many delegates were of the "we can help" variety, which was refreshing to hear. Many delegates had come to find out what was there to learn, and this conference seemed to project the image of "can do" indicating the beginning of a transition from a fledgling market to a mature one.

In response to the question of the importance of Java to Symbian, Jonathan said, "Symbian OS is an open platform for Mobile Phones that offers opportunities for third parties to create interesting and useful applications and services. Developers can use a variety of languages: C++, mobile VB, Java, and even OPL. However Java has a set of features that make it important to Symbian."

"In particular it's the best way to expose the strengths and functionality of Symbian OS to a large developer community. Java is inherently a secure and robust language, thanks to features such as the byte code verifier, arrays which are first class objects, preventing inappropriate casting, and preventing random memory accesses. This makes it ideal for downloaded applications and services," and finally he added, "It's a set of standards driven by a mature community process, which ensures that it meets the needs of the wireless market in particular."

An agreed standard for OTA provisioning of Java applications, a simple domain based security model, and the greatly enhanced functionality of MIDP 2.0 ensure plenty of opportunities for the developer. On this subject he said the differential in capability and performance between Java and native applications is decreasing all the time. By using an optimised Java VM and taking advantage of the native platform, Symbian's Java implementation gives developers better performance and increased functionality. For example the JSR135 multimedia APIs expose the native media codecs.

The enterprise sector on the other hand, provides a different market. Mobile applications are of a higher value but record lower volumes. They will typically be used to interface to middleware such sa SAP, BEA, etc, extending a company's Information Systems out to the mobile workers. Jonathan also described the differences between US and European enterprise markets. The US market is enterprise driven, with enterprise solutions moving into consumer markets. The European and Japanese market have been driven by the consumer, with enterprise following.

On the subject of standardisation, Jonathan Allin suggested that the developer is faced with making choices between exploiting features of a particular handset against writing to wider standards with a potentially less compelling application. However the Java Community Process through expert groups such as JSR 185 (Java Technology for the Wireless Industry) is the best way of obtaining convergence because it creates the most compelling common Java environment possible. It is an important body for getting standardisation across mobile phones.

Neil Ward Dutton, Research Director, Ovum, concluded the conference by showing that the commercial realities are driving the need for standards. These will reduce the costs and risks, and potentially maximise revenue potential. Standardisation may be obtained through the Open Mobile Alliance, the Parlay group and JAIN technology. However, in order for Java to succeed it has to separate itself from certain dangers. "Complexity and fear prevents Java from escaping from its own sandbox," he said.

About the author

Alan Newman runs a technology consultancy, (Sensible Development), specialising in wireless and fixed internet application development. Its main product is a football manager simulation game, (effeffelle.com), that combines the football community with the running of a football club. Players have to build a club up from scratch, trade players, build the stadium and set the team's tactics. This is due to be re-launched after a considerable technical face-lift in February 2004.