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Tira automates J2ME mobile code generation

By Bernard Cole
iApplianceWeb
(03/25/03, 02:14:48 AM EDT)

Toronto, Ontario, Canada -- Tira Wireless has just unveiled its Java UniversalMobile Porting (JUMP) platform designed to directly address the most significantchallenge facing the J2ME (Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition) market -- namely device variation and lack of compatibility.

“The vision of Java is based on the concept of 'write once, run anywhere',” said Tony Davis, founder and CEO of Tira Wireless. “But, widespread device fragmentation - particularly variations in device hardware, Java Virtual Machine implementations, and custom extensions - has created a costly development process where applications are created on a per device basis.

The company's universal mobile platform is designed to allow a developer to create creates a single version of an application and submits it to Tira for processing through the JUMP platform. The application is then used as the reference for new customized versions, which are automatically created for a wide selection of target Java-based mobile phones. Application developers do not require previous knowledge about the individual handsets, and also do not need to supply their application source code.

“Today, developers spend about 20 percent of their time creating the application and 80 percent of their time porting applications from one device to another,” explains Davis. “This process gets more complicated as new devices appear on the market and as new versions of existing devices are released.

According to Davis, the benefit to mobile phone service providers is that they can introduce a range of additional features such as Java-based games and applications and promote them with confidence knowing they will operate on devices they currently support, as well as new devices being introduced to the market.

JUMP creates the applications for each handset by automatically generating and customizing J2ME applications to meet particular device features and functionality, including memory, processing power, screen size, screen color attributes, key mapping, full canvas graphics, sound, vibration, user interface, and networking.

The JUMP platform consists of the four essential elements. First is an application analyzer. A submitted reference application is automatically analyzed for a wide range of portability issues related to device attributes. If modifications are required instructions are fed back to the developer. The second element is portability assessment in which the run time performance of the reference application is dynamically reviewed in a specialized emulator environment to determine its ability to adapt to specific device parameters. In the third stage, application generation, multiple application versions are automatically generated and customized to support the characteristics of each target device. Finally, in the last stage, device plug-ins are created. As new devices or variations of existing devices are introduced, the device is profiled and added to the JUMP Device Plug-in library. Existing applications are then automatically generated for the new device.

For more information on this product, go to www.tirawireless.com.

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