palmOne Brings Java Support to the Treo 600

Posted By: Ryan Monday, December 15, 2003 11:38:46 AM

palmOne today announced the latest release of a developer toolkit that brings Java 2 Micro Edition support to Treo 600 smartphones and Tungsten handhelds, which significantly expands the capabilities of its product lines for business customers and developers. A beta of the new version of IBM's WebSphere Micro Environment Toolkit for Palm OS Developers, which includes a new high-performance runtime with support for the latest Java Community Process standards, was released to developers today.

The toolkit enables developers to target, deploy, and execute their Java MIDlet applications on palmOne devices, directly alongside native Palm OS applications. The early-access release allows software developers to design and test applications that utilize the new standards support and other capabilities in advance of the end-user runtime release next spring. With support for both the Treo 600 smartphone and the Tungsten line of handhelds, compelling, standards-based applications and solutions can now be deployed in a consistent way to mobile workforces and consumers alike.

With the availability of Java technology, developers can use existing tools, skill sets, and in some cases code, to create new mobile solutions for palmOne products, as well as seamlessly deploy existing MIDP applications originally targeted at other devices with MIDP support. Specifically, the new release enables support for the Connected Limited Device Configuration (CLDC) 1.1/ Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP) 2.0 Java Specifications. This provides a Java Powered runtime together with the Treo 600 smartphone's five-way navigation, along with CDMA/1XRTT and GSM/GPRS network stack support, as well as the Tungsten line's high-resolution screens and the Tungsten T3 handheld's fully extended portrait and landscape displays. The performance of the new runtime is also significantly improved through native ARM optimization, beating many of the highest published scores on industry-standard benchmarks such as JBenchmark and MIDPMark.

"With IBM's native ARM Java runtime on the Tungsten handheld and Treo 600 smartphone, we're easily able to develop applications while not sacrificing speed, functionality or usability," said Jerome Liss, vice president for development, Digital Dispatcher. "Our flexibility in serving our customers is also greatly increased -- we can now take full advantage of standards-based development and deliver applications to our customers on the kind of mobile device they want -- whether it's a Tungsten C handheld with integrated Wi-Fi or a Treo 600 smartphone -- without needing to significantly rewrite code or invest in a new set of tools and training."

Today's announcement reinforces palmOne's commitment to the mobile software development community. By quickly extending the benefits of the Java developer community and IBM relationship to the award-winning Treo smartphone product line, palmOne developers are better equipped to deliver compelling aftermarket enterprise solutions. The Treo and Tungsten line of products offer a more diverse set of capabilities and configurations than what the mobile Java development community has had available from the more traditional handset and smartphone market. Customers' demand for richer input mechanisms, brighter and higher-resolution screens, and more storage memory can now be met.

"Delivering Java to the Treo 600 smartphone is just the beginning of the tremendous benefits the recent merger is bringing to our customers and the mobile market in general," Joe Sipher, vice president of product and carrier marketing for palmOne. "We're thrilled to be providing three million plus Java developers the tools and support necessary to build truly great mobile business solutions."

"IBM is committed to extending enterprise computing to a range of devices. Our latest effort with palmOne underscores the importance of embedded Java technology in enabling devices to better access business applications," said Craig Hayman, worldwide vice president, Development, IBM Pervasive Computing Division. "As enterprises look at ways to untether their workforces, the rich pool of Java developers can use existing skills and resources to bring their applications to the rapidly growing mobile market in a consistent manner, with more speed and efficiency."

WebSphere Micro Environment Toolkit for Palm OS Developers is a standalone developer toolkit for use with any J2ME-compatible development environment, such as Borland JBuilder, SunONE Studio and Simplicity for Mobile Devices. In addition, IBM's award-winning WebSphere Studio Device Developer (WSDD) is now optimized for creating palmOne product-based Java applications. The Eclipse-based WSDD can integrate with the other WebSphere Studio tools to provide an end-to-end Java development solution. WebSphere Micro Environment's flexibility also enables expandability to support business-oriented add-on components, such as the IBM Web Services Toolkit for Mobile Devices or SerialIO's SerialPort for supporting external barcode readers.

Pricing and Availability
Developers can download the no-cost toolkit, both the beta of the MIDP 2.0 toolkit as well as the existing MIDP 1.0 toolkit, here. The MIDP 2.0 runtime is scheduled to be available for both the Treo 600 smartphones and the Tungsten handheld devices next spring. The runtime license for Treo 600 smartphone users is expected to be available from the Software Connection for $5.99.

The existing MIDP 1.0 runtime is currently available for the Tungsten line. Tungsten T3 and Tungsten E handheld users, as well as Tungsten W, Tungsten C and Tungsten T2 handheld users who purchased their handheld on or after Oct. 1, 2003 can download WebSphere Micro Environment for no cost. For users who purchased their Tungsten handheld before Oct. 1, 2003 and users of Zire(TM) 71 handhelds, the Software Connection is currently offering the runtime license for $5.99. Users who download or purchase the MIDP 1.0 version of the runtime will be able to download the MIDP 2.0 upgrade when it is available next year at no cost.

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Cool!

Verteron @ 12/15/2003 3:12:58 PM #
This sounds like a great move for Palm... hopefully enabling professional rapid application development on the platform. A lot of businesses use Java in house and having J2ME available will hopefully go some way to countering Visual Studio and .NET on PPC. Downloading now...

Finally! Hires Java

BartVB @ 12/16/2003 6:35:27 AM #
I tried this yesterday and it's a huge improvement over the old Java VM. It can finally do more than 160x160 and it runs a lot faster. I was planning on doing a Java Jabber client (www.jabber.org) for the Palm but I wasn't very motivated because of the 160x160 limitation. It's really hard to do anything useful with a 160x160 screen, at least it is for me. Well, it's doable but it's frustrating if you know that most new devices can do at least 320x320. So I guess I should start programming again ;)

_________
Jabber, the next-generation IM system. www.jabber.org
RE: Finally! Hires Java
ldrolez @ 12/16/2003 4:53:00 PM #
You already had hires in java for a while with superwaba.
Superwaba is the best JVM for palm devices and it's free and open source ! Check out www.superwaba.com
And with superwaba, you get cool classes specialized for palm devices. I don't really see why you should pay for a JVM !

RE: Finally! Hires Java
ldrolez @ 12/16/2003 4:56:55 PM #
If you want you can also improve existing open source palm jabber clients:

- Jabber Palm : http://www.palmopensource.com/index.php3?more=466
- EB-Lite : http://www.palmopensource.com/index.php3?more=437

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