Tira upgrades porting software

Tira Wireless this week unveiled an upgrade of its porting technology, adding features that allow developers to automatically tweak applications across handsets.
The Toronto-based company is boosting its Jump platform with “Jumplets”-customized components that can be used time and again with different builds. The J2ME-compatible technology is designed to allow developers to address common issues such as fixes for consistent device incompatibilities, creating a kind of reusable, boilerplate solution.
A Jumplet might be used multiple times, for instance, to tweak applications for a handset model that has an unusually small screen. And Jumplets can be permanently installed in a database, allowing developers to share fixes with their colleagues.
“They’re actions you can take to solve common device idiosyncrasies on specific types of phones,” said Tony de la Lama, Tira’s senior VP of product management and marketing. “The sharing of code is a really key concept here.”
Tira has moved deftly to capitalize on the ever-increasing problems of fragmentation of handsets, networks and languages in the global wireless market. The 6-year-old company sold off its publishing business to Airborne Entertainment in a 2004 effort to focus on porting solutions, and boasts an impressive list of customers including The Walt Disney Co., RealNetworks Inc., EA Mobile and Jumbuck.
Game makers and other publishers have long cited porting as the single most costly endeavor in bringing mobile goodies to market. While Java was billed as a “write once, run anywhere” platform, developers still must tweak their offerings for a host of different phones. And while technologies such as Flash Lite may ease some porting difficulties in certain instances, analysts generally agree that ever-increasing numbers of handsets and technologies will continue to give developers major headaches for the foreseeable future.
“There’s nothing on the horizon that’s going to make any of this any simpler, any easier,” de la Lama said.