Wireless Applications Abound at Show

SAN FRANCISCO (06/08/2000) - The burgeoning popularity of Java-based wireless applications was apparent this week here at Sun Microsystems Inc.'s JavaOne conference, with vendors making a slew of announcements.

Sun's wireless strategy, including the availability of its Java2 Platform, Micro Edition technology, attracted the support of more than 500 companies which signed up to work with J2ME, making it one of Sun's largest platform announcements, the company said.

Sun also unveiled a "Wireless Java Connection" program to provide business, marketing and technical services for companies using Java in their wireless-based activities.

Some of the J2ME-related announcements at JavaOne this week included:

-- Motorola Inc. is supporting Java technology in several of its products including wireless devices such as phones, pagers and PDAs (personal digital assistants), Sun and Motorola said in a statement.

Motorola's first J2ME-enabled cellular phone is set for shipment by the middle of next year. By mid-2002, the company said it anticipates that all its handsets will have J2ME capability.

Motorola, in Schaumburg, Illinois, can be reached at +1-847-576-5000 or via the Web at http://www.motorola.com/. Sun, based in Palo Alto, California, can be reached at +1-650-960-1300 or via the Internet at http://www.sun.com/.

-- Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM), which makes the popular BlackBerry wireless e-mail device, announced the immediate shipment of its pager-sized RIM 950 Wireless Handheld and its palm-sized RIM 957 Wireless Handheld devices that include an early release of Sun's J2ME.

Based in Waterloo, Ontario, RIM can be contacted at +1-519-888-7465, and on the Web at http://www.rim.net/.

-- LG Telecom Ltd. of Korea said it plans to ship J2ME-compatible mobile phones within the next three months.

-- Nokia Corp. will support Java technology in a variety of its smart phones and communicators starting next year. Nokia, in Espoo, Finland, can be reached at +358-9-5113-8193, or on the Web at http://www.nokia.com/.

Other Java-related announcements here this week included:

-- Wind River Systems Inc., a software and services vendor for Web-based smart devices, announced its Tornado for Internet Appliances architecture, a client/server Java technology for the development, deployment and content management of Internet appliances.

To be released in beta version next month, the architecture is tailored to the requirements of Internet appliance developers, ISPs (Internet service providers) and network operators, Wind River said. Final release of Tornado for Internet Appliances is expected within three months.

Wind River, based in Alameda, California, can be reached at http://www.windriver.com/.

-- IBM Corp. said it has enhanced its WebSphere software platform with new tools and Enterprise Java Bean (EJB) components aimed at improving developer productivity and simplifying the process of marketing e-business applications.

A development tools initiative, called WebSphere Business Components, will ship later this year. It will include a set of business functions, including components for individual industries such as insurance and banking along with cross-industry components such as SCM (supply chain management).

IBM, in Armonk, New York, can be reached at +1-914-499-1900 or at http://www.ibm.com/.

-- Iona Technologies Inc. announced the release of Orbix 2000 version 1.1 for Java, which adds Java functionality to give customers an equivalent set of features for developing Java and C++ CORBA (common object request broker architecture) applications.

Orbix 2000, the latest release of Iona's flagship ORB (object request broker), is a component of the company's iPortal Suite, an e-business platform.

Iona, based in Dublin, Ireland, can be reached at +353-1-637-2000 or via the Internet at http://www.iona.com/.

-- Informix Corp., announced an upgrade of Cloudscape, the company's Java-based database for embedded systems and distributed electronic business applications.

Cloudscape 3.5 now offers improved performance, reliability and security, the company said.

Informix, in Menlo Park, California, can be reached at +1-650-926-6300, or on the Web at http://www.informix.com/.

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