At the PalmSource Developer Conference this week in San Jose,  PalmSource, Inc., announced that it has licensed IBM's WebSphere MicroEnvironment (WME) J2ME certified runtime environment and WebSphere Studio Device Developer (WSDD) toolset for integration into the Palm OS platform.

Extending Palm OS support for Java is expected to encourage adoption of the Palm OS platform among the Java developer community.

"The combination of PalmSource's strength as a leading mobile platform provider and IBM, a leader in Java development, attests to the growing importance of embedded Java solutions for smart mobile devices," said David Nagel, president and CEO of PalmSource, Inc. "We believe integrating IBM's WME will create a Java development environment that will foster growth in the development of Palm OS-based Java solutions," he added.

According to the official company release, "Providing open-standards-based software development environments such as WME is expected to create new market opportunities for the more than 275,000 Palm OS developers and is anticipated to broaden the reach of the Palm OS platform into the growing Java developer community. In addition to native Palm OS applications, WME provides Palm OS developers the tools needed to execute Java MIDlet applications designed to run on Palm Powered smart mobile devices."

With more than 3 million members, the Java development community will now be able, PalmSource and IBM hopes, to leverage existing tools and languages to create new Palm OS-based Java solutions. In addition, integrating IBM's WME should help accelerate time to market for Palm Powered smart mobile devices.

PalmSource has also licensed the WME Java Virtual Machine to enable existing and new Java applications to run on Palm Powered smart mobile devices. Additionally, users will be able to run existing Java applications originally built for MIDP-compliant devices, such as mobile phones and pagers, to run on Palm Powered smart mobile devices.

By supporting Java, Palm Powered smart mobile devices will also be able to leverage mobile operator networks worldwide that have standardized their mobile services offerings on Java, making Palm OS a connected platform for mobile wireless products. 

"Our latest effort with PalmSource underscores the importance of embedded Java in the device arena and enables the rich pool of Java developers to use existing skills and resources to bring their business applications to an increasingly mobile workforce," said Bruce Morse, Director, Business Development, IBM Pervasive Computing.

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