Industry Group Nears Release of PDA Profile For J2ME

PalmSource, the new Palm division that licenses the company's popular mobile operating system, is leading the effort to create a PDA Profile for Sun's Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME). The specification is made up of a group of APIs designed to enhance Java performance for Palm's handhelds, Microsoft's Pocket PCs and other PDAs.

Phillip Shoemaker, director of development tools at Palm, said the specification is currently in private review through the Java Community Process, the industry group responsible for developing Java technologies. A vote is scheduled for April 8.

If the specification is accepted, it will be submitted for public revue for about one month and then released for use by the end of May, Shoemaker said.

Palm is looking for a third party to develop a Java Virtual Machine based on the PDA Profile once it is released, Shoemaker added.

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Solution providers are anxious to get their hands on the PDA Profile and related technologies so they can extend Java more effectively in the mobile market. Many developers have complained that Java's current Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP) is unsuited for larger, more sophisticated mobile devices. They believe MIDP is more appropriate for cell phones and pagers.

Shoemaker likened it to running old DOS programs from the command line. "It's a profile that's good for smaller categories of devices, such as pagers and cell phones," he said. "People have put MIDP on a Palm device but it's just not a very good user experience."

Anthony Meadow, president of Bear River Associates, a mobile solution provider in Oakland, Calif., is looking for more sophisticated data entry capabilities than are available on small-screen cell phones. He said the PDA Profile will allow Java to play a more significant role in the mobile market and enable developers to create unique applications for handheld devices.

"We've been able to use Java everywhere but on mobile devices, and it's been a source of frustration for developers," he said.

The PDA Profile is expected to support larger color-screen, touch-screen applications and limited data storage, among other issues. It will work with the J2ME Connected, Limited Device Configuration.

Sun, IBM, Nokia, Symbian, Research In Motion and Sony are among the vendors working on the specification with PalmSource.