Within a decade, the programming possibilities for mobile phone devices will equal those of laptop computers.
That's the hypothesis of Srikanth Raju, a Sun Microsystems engineer and wireless technology evangelist. He addressed a gathering of developers at Gallagher Estate this week.
Raju said it is likely that in 10 years, handheld mobile devices will have advanced to such a degree that programmers will no longer be confined to the limited subsets of programming languages like the present Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME). He said future Micro Editions of Java will become increasing like the Standard Editions as hardware advances are made.
Raju predicts an explosion of opportunities for developing applications for handheld mobile devices as mobile phones offer increased PDA functionality and the demand for wireless access to online content continues to grow. This will be driven by the demand for real-time computing, increased enterprise integration and mobile commerce, he noted.
Raju said Java is well positioned to take advantage of the huge application development opportunity he expects. "Java has a rich set of application programming interfaces (APIs) with a wide range of development tools available and is endorsed by all major handset manufacturers."
He highlighted some of the new and upcoming APIs for mobile handheld devices such as the APIs for Bluetooth, Web services, 3D graphics, security and trust services, location services and wireless messaging.
"Although there is a high level of technology awareness in SA, like most other places in the world, developers need to be exposed to the latest tools and better educated about the possibilities that exist."
He said it takes time to build applications around any new technology and educating developers about the continually evolving possibilities is an ongoing process.
"A major development that will change everything in the computing landscape will be the perfection of voice recognition, but that is still some years away and there is much work to be done in the mobile space in the mean time. There are huge opportunities for everyone."
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