Lutris Technologies Inc. released Lutris Enhydra Wireless, the certified and supported version of its Open Source wireless software platform that provides developers and systems integrators the source code, support and services to deliver Java and Extensible Markup Language applications to wireless devices.
Enhydra Wireless includes the Lutris Enhydra Java/XML application server, XML compiler, phone emulators for prototyping and testing, a wireless developer’s guide and sample applications, such as an EnhydraMail demo.
Keith Bigelow, director of product management for Lutris, said the software supports “every single wireless protocol on the planet and every protocol expected to ship in 2001,” including Hypertext Markup Language, Java 2 MicroEdition, Wireless Markup Language, compact HTML, xHTML and VoiceXML. In the case of cHTML, it was added as a result of contributions from the Open Source community, Bigelow said.
Enhydra Wireless works with iMode, WAP and Mobile Information Device platform/J2ME-supported devices such as Handspring personal digital assistants and RIM Blackberry pagers.
Unique to Enhydra Wireless is the Enhydra Extensible Markup Language Compiler, a technology developed by Lutris and embedded in the product. It enables a single application to deliver content to any number of devices.
“A user can choose any XML document type, regardless of the XML schema, and (Enhydra Wireless) can compile that document to Java. It makes it very easy for one application to have many devices plugged into it,” Bigelow said.
The company hopes this “one-to-many” approach will help decrease time-to-market and ease the adoption of future wireless technologies without having a significant impact on the original code.
Developers got a glimpse of the final Enhydra Wireless product in June when Lutris distributed a wireless developers kit to attendees of a Javaone conference in San Francisco. The unsupported version of the software is available on the Enhydra Web site, but just like original Enhydra, users don’t get access to Lutris’ consulting support and services.
Bigelow said there will be three versions of Enhydra Wireless ready for general release in December. Pricing of the product will depend on the selected training and support packages, but is expected to range from $1,000 to $4,000.
