Relevance of J2ME projects
With the advent and intensive development of new mobile platforms (BlackBerry, Android, iOS, etc.), many mobile software developers have a question: is there a future for Java ME (MIDP 1.0 / 2.0 platform) and is it worth continuing to work on this? direction, or it is necessary to fully switch to newer and more modern technologies. Let's try to figure it out.
If you focus on the post-Soviet market for mobile software products, you can notice the following: the market share of devices on MIDP platforms is more than 70%, which is a very significant figure.
Unfortunately, J2ME is very limited in its capabilities and “dimensions” of the final product. This does not apply to all phones, but if you write the maximum cross-device production, all these restrictions should be taken into account. We list the main ones:
There are a number of subtleties, but for now we’ll omit them.
In the consumer market, J2ME applications can only survive as mini-games or ODP (On-Device Portal), which are not demanding to the functionality of the phone and are thin clients for information portals. As the functionality expands, the volume of the application increases, the requirements for local data storage increase and additional APIs are connected, which significantly reduces the range of devices on which the application can work correctly.
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As a rule, large and medium-sized companies use corporate software developed for Windows Mobile (sales agents sales accounting systems, etc.). But quite often there are cases when a company only launches a mobile sales control system, but does not want to invest too many assets for the purchase of equipment and a variety of licenses. In such situations, the company orders 100 mobile phones on the MIDP platform in the price range of $ 80-100 and orders the development of a client java accounting program for 2-3 thousand dollars.
As a result, the initial cost of launching a sales control system will be a maximum of $ 13,000, in contrast to the version with Windows Mobile devices, where equipment costs will be only $ 30,000
If we take into account the growth and development of new mobile platforms and the dynamic decline in prices for devices under their control, the devices on the MIDP 1.0 / 2.0 platform have 2–3 years to fully exit from the main market (not taking into account, of course, the vast majority of retirement and elderly people). age, which can hardly be of any interest to mobile software vendors).
You can make quite a logical conclusion that it is safe to actively create and sell J2ME products until the end of 2012. In 2013, the relevance and demand will fall sharply, which will make a business built on the development of java-products unprofitable.
Bright side
If you focus on the post-Soviet market for mobile software products, you can notice the following: the market share of devices on MIDP platforms is more than 70%, which is a very significant figure.
Dark side
Unfortunately, J2ME is very limited in its capabilities and “dimensions” of the final product. This does not apply to all phones, but if you write the maximum cross-device production, all these restrictions should be taken into account. We list the main ones:
- The size of the compiled JAR file - for 20% of java-devices, the limit is up to 128Kb
- Access to the file system - only with the support of the PIM API
- Access to the address book and messages - only with the support of the PIM API
- Work with the camera - only with the support of MMAPI 1.1 (for example, on Nokia Sirocco or Nokia 2100 is not supported)
- Work with images - basically only PNG-8 and PNG-24 are supported without the possibility of superimposing semi-transparent areas on background graphics.
- Application data storage - on some phones the maximum amount of stored data is only 3Kb
There are a number of subtleties, but for now we’ll omit them.
User consumer segment
In the consumer market, J2ME applications can only survive as mini-games or ODP (On-Device Portal), which are not demanding to the functionality of the phone and are thin clients for information portals. As the functionality expands, the volume of the application increases, the requirements for local data storage increase and additional APIs are connected, which significantly reduces the range of devices on which the application can work correctly.
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Corporate segment
As a rule, large and medium-sized companies use corporate software developed for Windows Mobile (sales agents sales accounting systems, etc.). But quite often there are cases when a company only launches a mobile sales control system, but does not want to invest too many assets for the purchase of equipment and a variety of licenses. In such situations, the company orders 100 mobile phones on the MIDP platform in the price range of $ 80-100 and orders the development of a client java accounting program for 2-3 thousand dollars.
As a result, the initial cost of launching a sales control system will be a maximum of $ 13,000, in contrast to the version with Windows Mobile devices, where equipment costs will be only $ 30,000
Future
If we take into account the growth and development of new mobile platforms and the dynamic decline in prices for devices under their control, the devices on the MIDP 1.0 / 2.0 platform have 2–3 years to fully exit from the main market (not taking into account, of course, the vast majority of retirement and elderly people). age, which can hardly be of any interest to mobile software vendors).
You can make quite a logical conclusion that it is safe to actively create and sell J2ME products until the end of 2012. In 2013, the relevance and demand will fall sharply, which will make a business built on the development of java-products unprofitable.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/120978/
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