WDN - Rick perhaps we can start by recapping on the products announced at JavaOne.

Rick - Well, the primary product we introduced at the show was the Java Development Kit, which includes our Code Warrior Java tools and a target device. Since we introduced our J2ME product in November 2000 the feedback we have been getting is "love the product but how do I test on a device". So we went out and got the devices. You can choose either a US based device running on the Nextel system or a worldphone GSM based device, at the same price. Currently we are shipping the iDEN or Accompli phones from Motorola but we expect to have two more phones, one in October and another before the end of the year. Obviously, the phones are all shipped without service. So now you can take your code and run it on actual target devices, see how the refresh time and processor work, and get an idea what the GUI really looks like.

We are building further on this. As you know currently there are no devices that support on device debugging. So our next step is to fix that with software flow control, so you will be able to debug right there on the device.

WDN - Beyond the JDK what is Metrowerks roadmap for wireless support in CodeWarrior?

Rick - We are planning very extensive support with tools for the Symbian platform, Java Card, gaming and an open market Java tool.

I know that of particular interest to you Richard is the support for the Symbian platform. We are shipping two products between now and the Symbian Developer Expo in November. The first one, the Java Basic Edition, will introduce people to the Symbian platform and their Java based environment. It's due for release by September and is priced at $99 US. Following that is the Java Professional product, which will ship just in advance of the conference. Professional will support the features of the other wireless tools and should include software flow control for debugging plus some other nice features. It will be a true development environment, in other words for the commercial or corporate developer this will be the tool they would look to for their Symbian development. We have not yet set the price but it will be at least ten times that of the basic product. And, like the Java SDK, it will ship with hardware. We are not sure whether the Nokia deal with Borland will effect our ability to include the Nokia 9210, we hope not, but we are also in discussions with other vendors about including their products.

Our Java Card product, which we developed in conjunction with SUN, so it's the only SDK available for the Java Card standard, comes out in October. As a number of SIM cards are moving towards the Java Card development system we have seen a lot of interest from the wireless world in this product.

Then the final product for this year is our open market product, CodeWarrior for Wireless Java Edition, which comes out in December. Again this incorporates a number of the feature sets I described in the OS products, plus also a number of other plug-ins that allow development which ties directly to legacy back ends. So if you have a large database, CRM or SFA program that you are running at the corporate office and you want to make that mobily enabled, then that's what this product is really focused on. A key feature to achieve this is mixed mode debugging. To create the interface for the target device you will probably have to write C or C++ on the server and possibly even on the target device. With CodeWarrior you will be able to do native and Java debugging, which is a very powerful feature.

Finally we have tools for Palm and LINUX. As I am sure you know we are the leaders in Palm OS tools and we will be broadening that support to Palm wireless devices like the Kyocera smartphone.

We are also seeing a number of PDA and wireless devices targeting the open source LINUX platforms over proprietary Windows CE or Palm OS. The Sharp Zaurus is one of the devices and we supply a SDK for that, as well as an open LINUX tool.

WDN - Metrowerks are also involved in wireless gaming - which some see as the next big thing.

Rick - Yes, there was considerable interest here when Ericsson, Motorola and Siemens formed the Universal Mobile Games Platform initiative in March, with coverage in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and a number of other publications. As you know at present games are only available to you in the service area of the supplier, which is very limited. In the case of people like Digital Bridges, who support 22 carriers, the carriers are splattered all over the place so a game you can play in BT Cellnet you cannot play on Italian Mobile and it's no better here in the USA. So it is something of a hotch potch, games developers were becoming frustrated and content was suffering. The excitement came from the idea of a common standard so that game developer could build to a single platform, have multiple carriers and multiple handsets available to them. More importantly as you took your device and roamed the same games would be available. You will be able to call up a friend who is on a different system, even in a different country, and play one on one or you could just play against the computer. With this standardization across the carriers there will be pretty significant global coverage. Now Nokia have joined and the name has been changed to the Mobile Games Interoperability Forum - better know as "My God it's Friday" - that whole program is moving forward with huge buy-in from carriers, games Technologies' small footprint Java visualization technology. What plans do you have for other add-ins and tools?

Rick - I need to be a little careful here, ahead of official announcements, but I can tell you there are a number of agreements signed. Something I can mention, without letting anything out of the bag, is the RealNetworks product. RealNetworks have announced a partnership with Symbian and their plug-ins will be available within our tools. Similarly, in our post platform tools, connectivity to back end legacy bases needs tools for SQL, XML and others and we will be delivering them.

WDN - Given that there is currently only one Symbian V6 device on the market, the Nokia 9210, and the US version not due until 2002, what was the driver behind producing a Symbian version of CodeWarrior now?

Rick - At last year's Developer Expo Symbian got hit between the eyes, developers were saying - you've given us this multi piece SDK that we have to cobble together with our own technology and we are building our own proprietary tools. So it was important this year for Symbian to produce tools that allow for open platform development and that way assist in energizing new devices which use the platform. And I can tell you I will be shocked if 3 or 4 new devices are not shipping by the Developer Expo or within 45 days. In other words just the announcement that the tools will be available will help lift the activity level in a bunch of places. So that's why we are shipping the tools now.

WDN - In addition to the Java tool you are also supporting Symbian C++. Obviously the release of that tool will create some speculation as to whether Symbian themselves will be moving away from Visual C++ as their development environment. Can you comment on that?

Rick - Yes they will, you are correct. As the CodeWarrior for Symbian products rollout they will be adopting them internally. So anything directly related to the Symbian kernel, Java MidP and C / C++ will use CodeWarrior tools. This does not mean that the developer cannot use other visual tools, they just won't have kernel level debug and all the feature sets. So for Java you could use Jbuilder or VisualAge if you wanted too, but you would loose a lot of the essential elements of the compiler and debugger which will make CodeWarrior so attractive.

WDN - So when are the C++ tools due?

Rick - The world will see it at the Symbian Developer Expo in Barcelona in November.

WDN - With all this activity in Java tools are you concerned by Microsoft's moves towards C# and away from Java? I have noticed it has been recently reported that Java will not be shipped on Windows XP?

Rick - Interestingly I was probably more concerned than the market place in general. I personally have been watching this very closely as it concerns me a lot. I've been watching Stinger, the C# environment and also this XP announcement. Its my view that Microsoft has never actively embraced the Java environment anyway, the announcement also as a lot to do with the law suit with SUN. Microsoft are not popular in the LINUX and Java environment, they are like a bad word. But Java has just become too pervasive and I think they are going to have to retract and put Java in XP. You will remember when IE2 came out, they removed Java support and within 2 or 3 month they sent out an announcement saying "come and download this new Java plug-in". There was just too much of a backlash from end users, sites would not work, you could not fill out forms and the users said "give us Java or we will use Netscape". But by IE 4 Java was fully integrated again. So I think by the time XP 3 ships it will have Java.

WDN - Obviously one of the key issues with the wireless tools is going to be testing with the range of different devices, shipping hardware with the tools helps address this, but what about the bigger picture?

Rick - We are doing things to address that by coordinating with, not only with the Motorola MAGNET test centers, but also a number of other non-Motorola test center. So the developer can take their application, on CD or go there physically, and test in a live, although closed, cellular network, and see how their application works.

WDN - So you would be referring to something like the Nokia OK program.

Rick - While I can't be specific, as agreements aren't in place, that is exactly the type of thing we mean. Ericsson, Sony, all the major handset people have the same kind of programs, but also a number of the carriers are setting up sites.

WDN - With all these new tools rolling out Metrowerks must be pretty confident about the CodeWarrior tool, what do you believe the key to your success is?

Rick - We are engineer focus and that starts with the structure of our tool. To us it is important that when the developer moves to Palm, support for ARM or a network application the IDE remains the same, so they only have to learn the tools unique to that structure. We want to make sure that it is as easy as possible for the developer to go from concept to deployment and that includes ease of investment in the tools. Trying to rollout a $10,000 tool because we can is not always the best way to serve the market. I feel it's better to serve the market with an affordable product. We then get a sea of developers who generate feedback and this assists us in improving the product. We are really focused on this developer community feedback. We sometimes get asked about our rollouts, why they are timed the way they are. Well it's because we are driven by feedback; we don't live in a vacuum.

WDN - Thank you for that Rick and we look forward to reviewing the Symbian products in the near future.

Rick - No problem.

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About the Author

Richard Bloor has 16 years experience in the IT industry. His earlier work was largely in design and development of commercial and manufacturing systems but more recently has focused on development and test management of government systems. Richard Bloor is the Mobile Applications champion at System Architecture consultancy Equinox of Wellington, New Zealand.

Richard can be reached at rbloor@wirelessdevnet.com.

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