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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.)
.NET CF is already monolithic and bloated at version 0.9. J2ME is tiny and modular.
.NET CF is still vaporware in the field (I've got it since I'm a Visual Studio Everett beta tester)
.NET was coined by a marketroid in a smokey room to fight back against J2EE
.NET CF to a symbian device
.NET requires more expensive & larger screen devices, because microsoft dictate the specifications needed to run their bloatware
.NET CF will surely fail. And I didn't see a VS.NET ad with the story :)
j2me is already a couple of years old and pervasive (millions of devices) while
Java was designed from the ground up to run on small devices -
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
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...
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
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Was gonna do the standard 'fail.net initiative' type troll but hey there is no need in this story:
>"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.
Environmentalists are their own worst enemy. ~tricklenews.com
What's commonly known as vaporware then.
It's more commonly known as "Beta"... I'm running it right now.
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