Comments on: PalmSource Joins CTIA and Announces New Wireless Services

PalmSource has joined CTIA's Wireless Internet Caucus (WIC) and Leadership Council. The company has also formed new relationships that further align Palm OS with the needs of leading wireless operators and their customers. PalmSource announced deals to bring the Qualcomm BREW platform, to enable wireless delivery of Palm OS applications and is working with Spontaneous Technology to develop secure wireless hotsync's via the sVPN solution.

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Is nothing sacred?

MV-Jon @ 3/18/2003 11:37:02 AM #

I use Palm because development of applications has a low barrier to entry. There are plenty of free tools and documentation and there are not really any fees. Now here comes BREW. BREW charges a fee to do compatability testing for your app. They also charge a hefty fee for the compiler tools. Last I looked the RealView compiler tools cost about $1,500 or so. Then to top it all off, the whole SDK requires the use of Microsoft Visual Studio since it is a plugin for it.

I wish Palm put half as much effort on building a good J2ME(Java 2 Micro Edition) environment as they will end up putting into this BREW stuff. Then Java programmers could easily create cross-platform apps.

--Jon

RE: Is nothing sacred?

Michael Mace @ 3/18/2003 12:25:33 PM #

Just to be sure no one misunderstands, there are two things called Brew. There's Brew the software distribution mechanism, and Brew the software development platform. Our agreement with Qualcomm is to use the Brew distribution and billing infrastructure (which is extremely well designed IMO) to sell and deliver native PalmOS apps to wireless Palm OS devices. You don't have to change tools or anything. PalmSource is working the certification process with Qualcomm (details TBA).

Thanks for the feedback on Java.

Mike
CCO, PalmSource

Palm, Inc.

RE: Is nothing sacred?

Fammy @ 3/18/2003 12:39:11 PM #

I too as I developer would love to see more Java support (perhaps a runtime bundled with the device/OS).

Palm += Java;

_____
Fammy

RE: Is nothing sacred?

MV-Jon @ 3/18/2003 1:38:07 PM #

Mike - thanks for clearing that up. As a loyal Palm user for the last five years I got startled. I thought I saw the begining of the dark side :)

I really do think Palm is missing the boat on Java though. With Java becoming more and more popular for enterprise server application use, client use is sure to grow as well.

When it comes to handhelds Palm seems to be behind in this crucial area. The Zaurus has a pretty solid JVM. Hell, even the PocketPC *yuck* has better Java support than Palm.

--Jon

RE: Is nothing sacred?

Token User @ 3/18/2003 2:15:58 PM #

Having developerd commercially for both BREW and PalmOS, the similarities between the API sets are striking. But aside from that, as a developer, the BREW distribution platform provides a well managed means for the distribution of software, and more importantly, a means for the developers to actually get paid for their apps.

The certification process for BREW is painful (luckily, we were able to spend a lot of time in Qualcomm's BREW labs getting the apps to a point that they were more than stable for certification). One thing that BREW certified apps do guarrantee though is that they provide a minimum level of stability and functionality - something that is largely missing in the PalmOS environment, and is a definate requirment by cellular carriers for software loaded onto smartphones. This will become increasingly important as converged devices become more prevalent.

~ "Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed." - DV ~

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