Friday, April 11, 2003
Whats Brewing on Your Mobile?
(based on Technology & You by Wildstrom in BusinessWeek, Apr 14, 2003)
Two rival systems to develop programs for cell phones
a) J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition) by Sun
b) BREW by Qualcomm
J2ME is a common programming environment for many handsets while preventing downloaded applications to interfere with other software on the phone or the network. Some US carriers delivering J2ME programs are PCS, Nextel, AT&T Wireless and Cingular.
Qualcomm's BREW offers similar capabilities but the corporate modus operandi is different. Qualcomm runs BREW as a turnkey service (ASP deja vu?) for carriers such as Verizon and Alltel. Customers buy downloads from Qualcomm and Qualcomm passes the billing info to carriers. Qualcomm receives a percentage of the revenues for this.
J2ME may appeal to enterprises that already have in-house Java expertise and that want to distribute their own applications to mobile users without paying Qualcomm. BREW is more attractive to carriers. In both the cases though, the software providers have to work with carriers to get their software on the phones.
The challenges in writing such programs for mobile phones are
a) Plethora of handsets with different designs, hardware and software
b) Carriers' worries about applications that can cause problems on their networks.
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