As Russel [link gone] puts it: 2004 is the year of the mobile [applications]. (Okay, here in France, it might shift to 2005, but whatever…)

Of course, the two main markets here are:

  • mobile games (play while commuting…)
  • and mobile enterprise applications (sales forces empowerment/reporting…)
Well, it wouldn’t make sense to develop mobile games on any other technology than J2ME since no other technology is as widely available on a variety of trendy phones… the ones the targeted audience will buy, or already has bought.

However, regarding enterprise applications, the equation is quite different. The targeted users often do not have a recent (smart)phone (they just don’t care that much, as long as they can use their phone to call! :P) and even if they have: it doesn’t matter! Actually, the cost of new phones with a specific technology will just be a fraction of the cost for the global distributed application. Therefore, Microsoft smartphones and Palm based smartphones are just as well positioned to be used for mobile enterprise applications! Actually, the advantage may go to the platform that provides the most efficient middleware/framework to speed up development!

Another question remains: while a color phone screen and a keypad are enough for playing games, we yet have to check what screen size and input method are appropriate to fill out forms. Maybe connected PDAs will prove more relevant… (just add a bluetooth headset for phone capabilities). Personally, I tend to think that smartphones with large screens (P900, Sendo X, 6600, SPV E200) will do the trick, but we really need a reality check here!

Comments from long ago:

Comment from: Leon

There’s a good Sony Ericsson P900 specification and review at the mobile phone directory if anybody wants to have a look

2004-07-17 10-56