Will Java become more commonplace in cellphones? This article at The Register thinks so, if standards fragmentation and processor overhead doesn’t hobble it first. Sun is trying to rein in handset manufacturers who often develop their own, proprietary extensions to Java, making seemingly-portable Java programs incompatible from phone to phone. They also are trying to put Java on top of simple real-time operating systems, such as Linux, in order to lower the barrier-to-entry, processor-wise, for phones that can run Java. It’s certainly something that could benefit you and me: the ability to purchase and download software that will work on almost all phones would be handy, as opposed to the current cell phone market that requires the otherwise identical programs to be ported seperately to each phone platform.
