J2ME and .Net CFF Mobile Games 25
Java World is featuring the first part of a series comparing J2ME and the .Net CF vaporware (ok, it will exist at some point). It does tout the normal Java "features" such as being cross-platform in comparison to the mono-platform reality of .NET CFF. It has a bizarre critique of .Net CLR for being object oriented, and mentions the fact that most of the Linux PDAs coming out now run Java as an advantage for Java. (I love my Zaurus but I can't imagine it being useful for most people.)
buzzwords (Score:5, Funny)
"J2ME" ".Net" "CFF" "Mobile Games"
Re:buzzwords (Score:2)
Re:buzzwords (Score:1)
Re:buzzwords (Score:2)
Actually, that would make quite a good feature, automatically dropping buzzwords, it would probably help accuracy too.
Re:buzzwords (Score:1)
Comparison? (Score:5, Insightful)
And I hereby sue for false advertising - the article has nothing to do with games, dammit.
Re:Comparison? (Score:2)
lots of reasons .NET CF will fail and fail badly (Score:2, Interesting)
j2me is already a couple of years old and pervasive (millions of devices) while
Java was designed from the ground up to run on small devices -
Manufacturers (of highly desirable branded goods) don't want the handheld market to go the way of the PC (zero margin white box comodity)
J2ME has a broad coalition of big league supporters: symbian, palm, sharp, nokia, sony, ibm, oracle.
Compaq add 3rdParty java capabilitys to pocket PC on the ipaq because business customers demand j2me... can't imagine anyone being able (or willing) to add a 3rd Party
The major Manufacurers are heavily involved in the evolution of comapct java - and have organised it so that it can be installed on the full spectrum of mobile hardware...
nokia, IBM, Borland, Sun (and many others) each provide a seperate independant j2me developer kit and IDE FOR LINUX!!!! - this sort of open-standard support from large companies is the attitude that will kill microsoft sometime in the early 21st century
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Was gonna do the standard 'fail.net initiative' type troll but hey there is no need in this story:
Re:lots of reasons .NET CF will fail and fail badl (Score:2, Informative)
Care to back that up with some numbers Mr. Anonymous? The
OSS users are becoming as ignorant as the people they hate for not using OSS.
Sorry to ignore most of the article but.. (Score:3, Interesting)
I really have to reply to this. I've used some of the microsoft pdas and they aren't bad, but I wouldn't trade my zaurus for any of them. Many, not all or even most, but many PDA users are technically adept.
Anyone that wants to have a really cool, very useful toy would love the zaurus.
I have one and I assure you that anyone could use it for the tasks that most people use pdas for. For the people with a little more technical skill they are great.
That's just my opinion I could be wrong.
Re:Sorry to ignore most of the article but.. (Score:2)
Great toy for me, but it has a long way to go before I could recommend them to most people.
Re:Sorry to ignore most of the article but.. (Score:3, Informative)
I've never had to reset my for anything but I haven't had it that long so I already have the newest ROM.
Syncing with windows was easy, I will admit syncing with Linux was a bitch. But try to get an IPAQ to sync to linux without switching from Pocket pc to linux.
I don't use the zaurus for the same things you do. I mainly use it to read books, listen to music, keep track of contacts, and take short notes.
I agree great toy, but I would recommend it to most of the people I know.
.NET CF (Score:5, Informative)
and the .Net CF vaporware...
Actually, it's included in Microsoft Visual Studio.NET 2003 due for release in April IIRC.
Re:.NET CF (Score:3, Interesting)
It's more commonly known as "Beta"... I'm running it right now.
Re:.NET CF (Score:2)
Yes. You can. Just buy an MSDN universal subscription. VS2003 final beta has been shipping to MSDN subscribers for months now.
Vapo[u]rware???? (Score:2, Informative)
50 million Java handsets now in circulation (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.blueboard.com/j2me/
Handset manufacturers, mobile services, and
developers of content and applications face a
critical decision: Which handheld software platforms
will they support? Some of the choices include
recognizable brands -- Microsoft and Palm -- as well
as influential names like Blackberry, Java,
Qualcomm, and Symbian. Stakes of the decision can
be high. So-called network effects of technology
and economics tend to support the idea of only a
few winners or even a winner-take-all outcome. So
making a bad decision can resemble betting on the
wrong horse.
"The center of gravity for software developers who
want to reach users of handheld devices has
shifted," says Michael Gold, senior engineer in the
Digital Futures Program at SRI Consulting Business
Intelligence. "In the past, software developers were
asking, 'should we target Microsoft, Palm, or
Symbian?' Now they are increasingly focusing on
Java rather than the other three platforms. With 50
million Java handsets now in circulation worldwide,
2002 Java handset shipments exceeded PDA
shipments of the past several years. By end 2003,
the size of the market that one can address with
Java will still be larger than that of all PDAs and
smartphones (such as Nokia Communicator and the
Ericsson or Samsung equivalents) together -- even
if PDAs and smartphones grow by 100% in units this
year (probably an unrealistically high assumption).
Java has definitely surpassed the PDA operating
systems as the platform to target for the largest
mobile audience."
more on http://www.blueboard.com/j2me/
Phones are important, not PDAs (Score:1, Interesting)
Why? PDA manufactures will do not have the means to integrate phones. There are such attempts but there is no trend that they are successful. It is the mobile phone manufacturers that will integrate the PDA instead. Connectivity is everything, and the phones give that.
Since Microsoft does not have the knowledge to build phones, it has to partner with mobile phone manufacturers. However, the Microsoft model, where the hardware is a commodity and the software (Windows) is the jewel, is a tough pill to swallow. There is no money for the mobile phone vendor in that model. I do not think that mobile phone vendors will go with that kind of thinking, and they have not. The majority of mobile phone vendors are looking for options (including Java!).
So, from phones to PDAs, the pedulum will swing and clean out pure PDA vendors off the charts. What is left is Java