Microsoft and Oracle: Also-rans in smartphone development

Over the years, I have been a sucker for new languages and platforms. Pascal? Wrote it until I switched to C. OS/2? Ran it, developed for it, never could find a working driver for my printer, and eventually gave it up in favor of Windows. Java SE? Wrote once, debugged and revised everywhere, suffered with awful random garbage collection delays and mediocre performance, and finally went back to C++.

Java ME? Bought the Palm V, tried the early development environment, fell into the holes, and gave it up in utter frustration. .Net Compact Framework? Bought an iPaq, developed for it, saw that PDAs were a dying breed, and set it aside — and the Windows Mobile smartphones never took off enough to make me pick it up again. Need I go on?

So here I am in 2010 developing for smartphones. iOS and Android are obvious targets because of their strong market position. A decent application for either one might have significant competition, but even so there should be plenty of downloads of a good free version, and enough upgrades to a paid version or clicks on advertising to make the application pay. Although I’m not totally enthralled by the development tools for iOS or Android, I can live with them. Plus, there are device-aware, touch-enabled AJAX frameworks (jQTouch and Sencha Touch, for example) that let me target both platforms with a single Web application.

In recent news, the final Microsoft Windows Phone 7 Developer Tools (successor to the Windows Mobile 6.5 tools) and the Silverlight for Windows 7 Phone SDK are out. Also, Sun/Oracle Java ME has been enhanced with a SWING-like Lightweight User Interface Toolkit (LWUIT) and a Mobile AJAX framework. Both platforms have great development tools, primarily because both Microsoft and Sun were able to build their mobile development tools on top of their excellent desktop development tools. No matter what you think about the two platforms, you can’t deny the quality of the development tools.

We’ve seen this movie before on the desktop. For example, OS/2 had great development tools and a sound multitasking story, but never took off. Instead, the desktop market went to Microsoft for Windows, not IBM for OS/2.

Java ME has historically succeeded on feature phones, with numerous hardware profiles oriented toward slower processors, smaller screens, and limited additional features. According to Terrence Barr of Sun/Oracle, the open source LWUIT, which was actually released back in 2008, offers features appropriate for smartphones, such as touchscreen support, animations, and transitions — in addition to being portable and easy for developers to use and deploy.

Also according to Barr, the open source Mobile AJAX for Java ME provides developers with tools to easily access and consume a variety Web services. Both libraries could improve the lives of Java ME developers, but even together, they’re hardly a reason to give up Android development.

As InfoWorld executive editor Galen Gruman opined in March, Windows Phone 7 innovates by introducing the concept of decks that bring together information streams, and it demos well. In July, however, he saw the UI in action across several tasks, not just in a highly controlled presentation, and found it to be awkward and unsophisticated — a “pale imitation of the 2007-era iPhone.”

Although Gruman’s advice that “Microsoft should kill it before it ships” may be at the pessimist end of the analyst spectrum, the other extreme, the Windows Phone 7 cheerleaders, seem to be parroting Microsoft’s PR without a lot of justification. Yes, the development tools look great, but if the platform is likely to sink without a trace, what’s the point of committing development resources to create and maintain applications for it?

And yes, I know that Microsoft has been paying key developers to create applications for Windows Phone 7, so there will be some when it ships — but how many unsubsidized applications will materialize? And how much will unsubsidized developers have to charge for these apps to make back their investment?

I have to give Microsoft and Oracle credit: They’ve kept plugging away at the mobile market. The smartphone platform story isn’t finished, but right now it looks bleak for both of them. My reaction to both initiatives is the same: It’s too little, too late.

Are there niches that either one can fill in the mobile space? Undoubtedly. But I wouldn’t want to bet my company on Windows Phone 7 or Java ME applications. How about you?

This article, “Microsoft and Oracle remain also-rans for smartphone development,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Gruman et al.’s Mobile Edge blog and follow the latest developments in mobile technology at InfoWorld.com.