Java-enabled mobile phones present a great opportunity for Java application developers, Motorola officials stressed at the JavaOne conference in San Francisco on Thursday evening. There are hundreds of millions of Java-enabled devices, said Christy Wyatt, Motorola vice president of ecosystem and market development for mobile devices. “It’s a huge market opportunity for developers,” she said. Rob Shaddock, chief technology officer for mobile devices at the company, noted the dramatic size of the cell phone market, with its 2 billion subscribers. “This makes it the largest consumer electronics business on the planet, bar none,” Shaddock said. Mobile phones allow for taking content wherever you go and are displacing devices such as public phones and alarm clocks, said Shaddock. “We’ve replaced the public phones. They keep disappearing everywhere,” Shaddock said.Important trends in mobile phones include: Internet Protocol serving as the common thread; mobile, broadband technologies creating new opportunities and software driving a rich new experience.“Everything converges around IP. That means that applications can handle all kinds of content the same way,” said Shaddock. Users can roam between Wi-Fi and cellular networks and move content around, Shaddock said. A seamless world is being created in which content can be available anywhere and anytime. “The mobile phone is actually your identity,” said Shaddock. Great opportunities exist for applications, he said, citing peer-to-peer gaming as one example of an application area for cell phones.Linux and Java becoming critical for cell phones. Java provides portability for applications, Shaddock added. “The future of mobile is about software and it is about creating the ecosystem,” he said.But cell phone application development is challenged by the rapid acceleration of technology and platform fragmentation, Wyatt said. Motorola is seeking to overcome these obstacles with its Java unification effort for mobile phones and use of open source. The company also seeks to enable a single developer experience through its Motodev effort. Software Development