J2ME and .Net CFF Mobile Games

Java World is featuring the first part of a series comparing J2ME and the .Net CF vaporware (ok, it will exist at some point). It does tout the normal Java "features" such as being cross-platform in comparison to the mono-platform reality of .NET CFF. It has a bizarre critique of .Net CLR for being object oriented, and mentions the fact that most of the Linux PDAs coming out now run Java as an advantage for Java. (I love my Zaurus but I can't imagine it being useful for most people.)

Comments

buzzwords

[josephgrossberg]

Wow, every word in the title but "and". That's got to be a new record:

"J2ME" ".Net" "CFF" "Mobile Games"

Re:buzzwords

[tunah]

That word "and" is way overused... it rarely adds meaning to sentences... most people could not properly define it... sounds like a buzzword to me!

Re:buzzwords

[Smoking]

"And" doesn't count: it's automatically dropped in google queries...

Re:buzzwords

[tunah]

Damn censor bastards... if you want the REAL scoop on AND, do a search for "and" with the quotes. But you didn't hear it from me.

Actually, that would make quite a good feature, automatically dropping buzzwords, it would probably help accuracy too.

Re:buzzwords

[FroMan]

You don't vote in the programmer type polls do you?

Looks like a...

[spliff37]

Microsoft Plant 2003.

Comparison?

[MeanMF]

Let's see.. JAVA WORLD does an "objective" comparison of J2ME vs. .NET-CF and declares that "J2ME is the hands-down winner". Somehow I'm not surprised...

And I hereby sue for false advertising - the article has nothing to do with games, dammit.

Re:Comparison?

[Gortbusters.org]

Reminds me of how Java text books give "objective" comparisons of other [programming language] solutions before offering the holy grail [java] solution to you.

lots of reasons .NET CF will fail and fail badly

[Anonymous Coward]

.NET CF is already monolithic and bloated at version 0.9. J2ME is tiny and modular.

j2me is already a couple of years old and pervasive (millions of devices) while .NET CF is still vaporware in the field (I've got it since I'm a Visual Studio Everett beta tester)

Java was designed from the ground up to run on small devices - .NET was coined by a marketroid in a smokey room to fight back against J2EE

Manufacturers (of highly desirable branded goods) don't want the handheld market to go the way of the PC (zero margin white box comodity)

J2ME has a broad coalition of big league supporters: symbian, palm, sharp, nokia, sony, ibm, oracle.

Compaq add 3rdParty java capabilitys to pocket PC on the ipaq because business customers demand j2me... can't imagine anyone being able (or willing) to add a 3rd Party .NET CF to a symbian device

The major Manufacurers are heavily involved in the evolution of comapct java - and have organised it so that it can be installed on the full spectrum of mobile hardware... .NET requires more expensive & larger screen devices, because microsoft dictate the specifications needed to run their bloatware

nokia, IBM, Borland, Sun (and many others) each provide a seperate independant j2me developer kit and IDE FOR LINUX!!!! - this sort of open-standard support from large companies is the attitude that will kill microsoft sometime in the early 21st century

------
Was gonna do the standard 'fail.net initiative' type troll but hey there is no need in this story: .NET CF will surely fail. And I didn't see a VS.NET ad with the story :)

Sorry to ignore most of the article but..

[|deity|]

>"I love my Zaurus but I can't imagine it being >useful for most people."

I really have to reply to this. I've used some of the microsoft pdas and they aren't bad, but I wouldn't trade my zaurus for any of them. Many, not all or even most, but many PDA users are technically adept.

Anyone that wants to have a really cool, very useful toy would love the zaurus.

I have one and I assure you that anyone could use it for the tasks that most people use pdas for. For the people with a little more technical skill they are great.

That's just my opinion I could be wrong.

Re:Sorry to ignore most of the article but..

[krow]

Watching my partner screw up her palm often enough has me believing that my Zaurus would be a bit too much for her. Getting it to sync was a pain in the ass (and I ended up just writing software to do it in the end). I found that its email client is lacking and when I first got it I would end up resetting it a couple of times a week (the SD rom fixed that though).

Great toy for me, but it has a long way to go before I could recommend them to most people.

Re:Sorry to ignore most of the article but..

[|deity|]

I will agree that the Zaurus is not for everyone, but I don't think that anyone who could use one running microsoft's pocket PC, would really have any trouble with the zaurus.

I've never had to reset my for anything but I haven't had it that long so I already have the newest ROM.

Syncing with windows was easy, I will admit syncing with Linux was a bitch. But try to get an IPAQ to sync to linux without switching from Pocket pc to linux.

I don't use the zaurus for the same things you do. I mainly use it to read books, listen to music, keep track of contacts, and take short notes.

I agree great toy, but I would recommend it to most of the people I know. :)

.NET CF

[IanBevan]

and the .Net CF vaporware...

Actually, it's included in Microsoft Visual Studio.NET 2003 due for release in April IIRC.

Re:.NET CF

[MeanMF]

What's commonly known as vaporware then.

It's more commonly known as "Beta"... I'm running it right now.

Re:.NET CF

[MisterFancypants]

can I buy it yet? no! :-)

Yes. You can. Just buy an MSDN universal subscription. VS2003 final beta has been shipping to MSDN subscribers for months now.

Re:.NET CF

[Anonymous Coward]

how much does a MSDN universal subscription cost?

I thought it was supposed to be really expensive and intended for large companies....

compare that to the cost of the SUN ONE Studio Mobile edition - FREE! same for the nokia linux java developer IDE

Why the hell does a huge rich monopolistic software company like microsoft still need to charge for developer tools?

Vapo[u]rware????

[Burb]

Sheesh, I'm glad no one was telling me it was vapo[u]rware when I was contributing to this book ... Hey guys, say what you like about .NET CF but it does exist and will ship within weeks. Really.

50 million Java handsets now in circulation

[Anonymous Coward]

Lurker's Guide to J2ME
http://www.blueboard.com/j2me/

Handset manufacturers, mobile services, and
developers of content and applications face a
critical decision: Which handheld software platforms
will they support? Some of the choices include
recognizable brands -- Microsoft and Palm -- as well
as influential names like Blackberry, Java,
Qualcomm, and Symbian. Stakes of the decision can
be high. So-called network effects of technology
and economics tend to support the idea of only a
few winners or even a winner-take-all outcome. So
making a bad decision can resemble betting on the
wrong horse.

"The center of gravity for software developers who
want to reach users of handheld devices has
shifted," says Michael Gold, senior engineer in the
Digital Futures Program at SRI Consulting Business
Intelligence. "In the past, software developers were
asking, 'should we target Microsoft, Palm, or
Symbian?' Now they are increasingly focusing on
Java rather than the other three platforms. With 50
million Java handsets now in circulation worldwide,
2002 Java handset shipments exceeded PDA
shipments of the past several years. By end 2003,
the size of the market that one can address with
Java will still be larger than that of all PDAs and
smartphones (such as Nokia Communicator and the
Ericsson or Samsung equivalents) together -- even
if PDAs and smartphones grow by 100% in units this
year (probably an unrealistically high assumption).
Java has definitely surpassed the PDA operating
systems as the platform to target for the largest
mobile audience."

more on http://www.blueboard.com/j2me/

Re:50 million Java handsets now in circulation

[Anonymous Coward]

actually over a 100 million Java enabled handsets have been sold by this year. I would qualify that as a success. I think MIDP 2.0 will double that!

Phones are important, not PDAs

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know exactly how many PDAs there are today but I am sure the number is quite small (if not miniscule) compared to mobile/ cell phones. Microsoft is trying to get windows on the phones for obvious reasons. Who ever controls the phones potentially controls all the rest.

Why? PDA manufactures will do not have the means to integrate phones. There are such attempts but there is no trend that they are successful. It is the mobile phone manufacturers that will integrate the PDA instead. Connectivity is everything, and the phones give that.

Since Microsoft does not have the knowledge to build phones, it has to partner with mobile phone manufacturers. However, the Microsoft model, where the hardware is a commodity and the software (Windows) is the jewel, is a tough pill to swallow. There is no money for the mobile phone vendor in that model. I do not think that mobile phone vendors will go with that kind of thinking, and they have not. The majority of mobile phone vendors are looking for options (including Java!).

So, from phones to PDAs, the pedulum will swing and clean out pure PDA vendors off the charts. What is left is Java

Re:lots of reasons .NET CF will fail and fail badl

[GiorgioG]

.NET CF is already monolithic and bloated at version 0.9. J2ME is tiny and modular.

Care to back that up with some numbers Mr. Anonymous? The .NET CF runtime will be around 1mb for its final release. And will support most of the functionality of the .NET framework on the desktop.

OSS users are becoming as ignorant as the people they hate for not using OSS.