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An industry’s promise and its disconnects

by bryan morgan
March/April 2001

The application developer is a different breed of cat. We speak in code. Literally. Yet our role in creating mobile data applications and steering the evolution of the wireless Internet makes our aspirations and frustrations worthy of understanding. Welcome to the mind of one developer.

I’ll let you know where I’ve been and what I’ve seen along the way. It won’t all be about me or my breed, for there are implications aplenty for readers concerned with the development of wireless applications that boost subscriber numbers or support mobile workers’ productivity in the enterprise.

Let’s get acquainted. After earning my undergraduate degree in electrical engineering in 1991, I spent a decade writing software, primarily as a consultant to various enterprises using every platform and technology available. Since founding an online developers’ community–WirelessDevNet.com–in 1999, I have operated in a netherworld between technology and media. I spend part of my time writing code to improve the site and to test the latest tools and technologies. I also manage writers, report on industry news and plan or support industry events.

This dichotomy allows me to see the industry’s promise–and its “disconnects.” A chasm often separates the wireless industry’s promises from what developers can deliver. A gap also separates what technology vendors supply and what developers really want to support their work in creating killer apps.

Imagine developers’ frustration after retooling for WAP, only to turn on the TV and see ads promoting “surf the Web from your phone!” The emphasis should have been on the actual services delivered–stock quotes, e-mail, the ability to buy a book from Amazon.com– not on likening the handheld environment to the desktop. Likewise, third-generation technology proponents last year began hyping the arrival of high-bandwidth mobile connectivity as early as 2002. We were regaled with theoretical examples of streaming media and videoconferencing. The developer audience hears “theoretical” while consumers hear “streaming media.” This presents the industry with a credibility problem that threatens to choke off uptake.

A healthy tension between industry segments is one thing. But in an emerging industry, resolving such disparities matters to me–and, I suspect, to you as well. Thankfully, organizations such as The WAP Group support healthy dialogue between the business and technology worlds. I’d like this column to do the same.

Today I’ve got three interrelated concepts on my mind: interoperability, open source software and the promotion of widely used tools. No doubt these themes will crop up time and again.

Interoperability with legacy systems is a fundamental issue. Solutions that promise to mobilize content, data or applications often run on highly proprietary systems, so enabling technologies such as XML are critical for providing a “bridge” between the applications of yesterday and tomorrow.

With interoperability comes openness. An entire generation of developers is accustomed to the power of open source software, which has brought us Linux, Perl, PHP, Enhydra and other useful tools. Opening your platform through the provision of source code or through the support of open projects (such as the recent partnership between Motorola and CollabNet) should allow applications to blossom.

When faced with learning a new language or using an older, trusted one, most developers will opt for the latter. That’s why I see such a bright future for Sun Microsystem’s Java language and runtime environment on mobile devices: 2.5 million developers–fanatical about Java–soon will be unleashed on the wireless market, more than doubling the number of developers working on all other platforms combined.

Wireless data services are only as valuable as the applications running on them. Think about it.

Bryan Morgan is founder of the Wireless Developer Network. Contact him at bryanmorgan@home.com.