Last week was a good one for developers. The wireless industry has begun to give developers the attention they deserve, as evidenced by the slew of wireless-focused announcements at JavaOne and other developer forums.
In fact, some wireless carriers, which generally are the players being wooed, are courting the self-described geeks in full force.
European mobile carrier Orange had a booth at the JavaOne show in San Francisco last week. JavaOne’s audience is the developer community for all Java-related technology, wireless included.
Orange is looking for Orange-branded content across its many subsidiaries, and each country’s customers have different content wants, so general data apps won’t do. Orange is establishing developer centers, including one in Boston that opened last week, to test applications against Orange’s network. Orange has three levels of participation for content providers-completely Orange-branded content, co-branded content between Orange and a supplier, and content that garners Orange’s stamp of approval.
Vodafone Group plc said it is working with Sun Microsystems Inc. to build a Java-based developer platform called VFX to help developers launch billable applications for its next-generation Live! multimedia service. Here in the States, AT&T Wireless Services Inc. announced it will take part in PalmSource Inc.’s Palm Powered Mobile World program, which will allow AWS to leverage the Palm OS developer community for Palm OS content for the AWS networks.
And several companies announced content-related contests to further motivate developers.
To further the wireless data market, carriers and manufacturers alike are starting to target service packages that tie together similar types of content to certain demographics. MedicTouch L.L.C. said its technology, which allows users to monitor their pulse via a cell phone and then save or transmit the data, could be bundled with other health and wellness applications and marketed to the aging Baby Boomer crowd, for one. So someone’s grandmother might not buy a cell phone for voice applications, but if she needs to monitor her pulse for health reasons, she might buy a cell phone with prepackaged wellness applications. And who knows, maybe she would start calling her grandchildren with the same wireless phone that displays her pulse in real time during her daily walk.
Now there’s a concept-wireless data driving more voice minutes of use.
And none of the voice and data revenue increases could be possible without all the developers out there writing code for the many cool wireless applications currently available and just on the horizon.
