Sun Microsystems said it is poised to introduce new technologies to support mobile application development via the company's JavaFX platform. At last week's Java Mobile, Media and eMbedded Developers Days conference in Santa Clara, Calif., Sun announced it will formally unveil both the new Java On Device Portal for widget applications and the JavaFX Mobile runtime next month. Based on the Lightweight User Interface Toolkit, Java ODP promises rapid creation of web services and reduced testing costs, Sun officials said.
"[Java ODP] has two primary functions," Sun vice president of Java marketing Eric Klein told InfoWorld. "The first function is to make it easier for Java developers to quickly create these small widget applications using a consistent framework, and the second part is an on-device portal that lets that widget appear and be dynamically delivered." Klein adds that Java ODP is "really about getting content faster to the phone," and said Sun expects carriers to begin announcing their support in the next month.
JavaFX Mobile--due to make its formal bow at next month's Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona--offers a runtime for deploying JavaFX applications on mobile devices, promising a reduction in developer coding efforts, Klein explained. Other mobile-themed Sun projects in the pipeline include Java Specification Request 290, which will feature mobile browser APIs for Java ME applications and offer browser access to web pages from mobile phones. Java ME SDK 3.0, due in March, integrates capabilities for Connected Limited Device Configuration, Connected Device Configuration, Blu-Ray disks, and Java all in a single SDK. Several phoneME open source projects also are planned for this year.
For more on Sun's mobile forecast:
- read this InfoWorld article
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