JavaOne 2009 Highlights

This is turning out to be a good year for Java ME developers. This statement does not come from any earth-shattering announcements, but rather from a steady drumbeat of news and meetings which underscore the industry's commitment to mobile Java and its growth.

The biggest news for developers is Verizon Wireless's upcoming support of Java ME. With Verizon's entry, Java ME will be supported by every major US operator. Information Week is also reporting the rollout of an app store later this year. Verizon will be hosting a developer conference in Silicon Valley in late July in which specifications and APIs will be published.

Sprint's developer program also had a presence at JavaOne, where they announced their first open developer conference in late October. For developers this is great news as prior conferences provided contact with key people at Sprint but were by invitation and required an NDA for participation. This also includes Motorola iDEN Java ME devices whose openness led Nextel to a leadership market share position in LBS applications.

Sprint was also giving away Sanyo PRO-700 handsets to booth visitors and donated several boxes of them to the Java Community Process (JCP) which will be used to help encourage developer participation in the Java standards process.

Sun, SonyEricsson, Orange, and Vodafone announced JATAF whose goal is to reduce fragmentation by adding a new layer of device testing. I spoke at great length with key members of the team about their goals and questions about the project's governance. I left with a better understanding of the thought processes that led to its current state, and the feeling that we as an industry should throw our support behind this initiative, not only because it is sorely needed, but also because its leaders understand that adoption is crucial to its success and are willing to work hard to address issues raised by potential adoptees.

One question I asked the team members was whether they expected developers to download the test suite and write tests that document problems they've found with handsets. (I've learned that one cannot expect developers, focused on a hard deliverable, to have the time necessary to publish a test.) The JATAF team members told me that developers need only submit an issue - for example, an example, preferably with sample code, that highlights a bug in an implementation - and they will take care of the rest.

If ANY JCP member - individual or corporate - has questions or concerns about JATAF, by all means they should contact the JATAF team, but also feel free to raise these questions to me as an ME Executive Committee member. JATAF/JDTF is a meaningful effort to increase interoperability and I would like to be aware of anything that may give pause its adoption, so that we can work with the JATAF team to remove any barriers, real or perceived, and make this a strong tool in our fragmentation management arsenal.

I had to opportunity to speak with a number of JCP members including Shawn Fitzgerald, who was an EC candidate and close contender for the open seat vacated by Intel this year. Additionally, a number of us participated in an intimate BOF in which we briefed attendees about ME's recent successes (namely, the creation of an ME Working Group in the EC, the identification of key action items, JATAF, etc.) The BOF occurred in the middle of the AfterDark event so we knew that anyone who showed up was serious about ME/the JCP. With that in mind we dumped the microphones and stage, rearranged chairs and turned the BOF into a meeting with speakers and attendees as peers. This led to the identification of several near-term action items, and we collected email addresses so that we could continue the discussion after JavaOne.

Finally, there were a number of JCP EC events in which I got to speak with both ME and SE/EE EC members about matters concerning the ECs and Java in general. There is most certainly more to the JCP than meets the eye of developers, including yours truly - literally "invisible hands" to which the past, current and future states of Java ME can be attributed. In figuring out how to drive forward issues of importance to developers, we must first understand how the current framework operates from both a technical and political perspective so that we are able to recognize opportunities to press our agenda in ways that enhance success by being collaborative and meaningful in the JCP environment.