A simple example of this is when a developer refers to something as ‘magic’.  This occurs when they don’t understand how the technology works, particularly when it uses advanced methods (aspects, byte code enhancement, etc).  I’ve seen developers simply shut down, horse blinders firmly in place and say that it shouldn’t be used.  They’ll make every argument possible and derail meetings by constantly arguing about the technology.  Yes, Hibernate can be complicated.  Yes, Spring can be complicated.  However, they are not impossible and can be learned over time.  If you tend to think of annotations as putting in some keywords proceeded by an ‘@’ symbol at the top of a Java class so that something will work, you will never be comfortable with them.  Do yourself a favor–learn them.  Get yourself comfortable by having a basic understanding of the technology.  Most of the time you don’t need to peel through Java JSR specs or read a whole book.  You can simply do some Googling and read through an article or two.  If you have further questions, discuss it with other developers.  And remember, it’s not a race, take your time.  Put a few topics to look up in your favorite To-Do application and get to them when you can.

Don’t shackle yourself by keeping your mind closed and only using the rudimentary elements of the programming language.  Learn the advanced features.  Learn new frameworks.  It’s far easier look up articles through Google and read books than to write everything yourself from scratch.  Not only will you run across all the same problems and struggles every other programmer has, you will be left behind when applying for your next development opportunity.

As part of a recent assignment for a client, I researched a number of portal solutions which would replace an existing portal.  It was at this time that I had started to work with Liferay Portal 6.0.  I had heard of it, but I never spent the time to experiment with it.  What I found was a lightweight and powerful portal that was only a couple hundred megabytes in size and easy to use.  After the downloading and unzipping it, I fired up the startup script and was off and running complete with sample data for an easy evaluation.  Installing and starting this portal took minutes rather than my whole work day.

Up until a few months ago, I considered portal to be a dying technology.  It seemed that vendors treat it as an afterthought only taking care of it until their customers finally replace it with the ‘next big thing’.  After reviewing Liferay I can confidently say that portal technology is not only alive and well, but is thriving with a community of open source developers.  With enterprise level support available, it becomes a viable option for companies wanting to invest in portal technologies.

Last month I attended the Liferay West Coast Symposium in Anaheim, CA.  I attended some great workshops for effectively using Liferay including web service caching and creating plugins as well as lectures highlighting the upcoming 6.1 features which build upon the platform changes made in 6.0.

One of the new updates is the improvements made to content management.  A revamped staging environment complete with branching and versioning allows content managers to create and preview different stage implementations for their site.  Versions are created from the changes so that rollbacks are possible.

A new feature that was added is the ability to create Dynamic Data Lists.  These are similar to Google Apps Forms allowing for the creation of user filled forms with the results aggregated in the database viewable and exportable with a convenient spreadsheet view.  These lists can also tie into the workflow engine.

One of the boldest additions is the new Liferay Marketplace. The marketplace allows Liferay developers the ability to buy and sell software solutions for Liferay.  A new hot deploy package type has been introduced (lpkg files) which completely package solutions containing portlets, plugins, etc. which allow for easy installation.  Given Liferay’s large user base (over 4 million downloads), this has promise.

I’m definitely looking forward to using Liferay in my future portal work.  In upcoming blogs, I will share my experiences migrating to Liferay and developing new solutions using their tooling.

• 5:30 - 5:45 - Networking, Food and Beverages
• 5:45 - 6:45 - Keynote Topic: The Forecast is Clearly Cloudy, Presented by Mike Culver, Amazon Web Services Evangelist, Via Webex.
• 6:45 - 7:30 - Real World Topic: WebSphere Portal in the Cloud, Presented by Sonny Coccera, Managing Director, Isos Technology

Keynote Speaker: Mike Culver, Amazon Web Services Evangelist
Mike Culver joined Amazon Web Services in 2006 as a Web Services Evangelist in the Developer Relations Group. He is responsible for working with industry leaders and software developers to help them understand the principals and benefits of what is popularly known as Cloud Computing.

A 20-year technology veteran, Mike was previously at Microsoft where he helped launch the .NET platform, among other roles. In that capacity he managed a team that evangelized large companies to help provide them the tools and knowledge to become successful early technology adopters.

Prior to that he was president and founder of Extencia, Inc.; which was an early innovator in the eCommerce vertical. He also has almost a decade of experience running an IT organization in the wholesale distribution industry, and even experience as a developer using many popular programming languages.

Mike holds a BBA in Finance from the University of Wisconsin—Madison.

Real World Topic:
Cloud Computing is most definitely a buzz word; however there’s a reason why everyone is suddenly using the term. In this talk Mike Culver from Amazon Web Services will take a look at what the characteristics of Cloud Computing are, and the trends that he’s seeing in the Real World as organizations implement one or more Cloud services. He’ll also provide an update on what Amazon Web Services is up to; and why people are so excited about what most experts agree is a major inflection point in computing. Finally, you will hear about the details of some of IBM’s offerings in the Amazon Cloud.

Amazon.com spent well over a decade and billions of dollars creating an online technology presence of unprecedented scale and reliability. Many of the key learnings and best practices were rolled forward into a new business unit called Amazon Web Services, which delivers these benefits to software developers and IT practitioners as a set of foundational Web Services.

Real World Speaker: Sonny Coccera, Managing Director, Isos Technology
With more than 10 years of consulting experience, Sonny possesses with a unique aptitude for understanding and communicating advanced technology. He has held positions such as Chief Architect and Project Lead with previous employers AirToolz Software and Unity Software. Today, Sonny’s technical expertise provides his clients with an advanced quality of services and solutions. He is focused on the pursuit of better solutions through emergence of enabling technology.

Real World Topic:
Since 2006, Amazon has made their scalable, reliable and cost-effective cloud web services available to customers for running their IT infrastructure. Consequently, a number of companies have made their software available to use through the Amazon cloud including IBM. Learn about Amazon Web Services (AWS) and how you can take advantage of using their global computing infrastructure to run your IBM services. Don’t get left behind–find out what all the buzz is about.

During this presentation you will learn about Amazon’s Web Services featuring the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). You will also find out what IBM software is available for use and see a demonstration of how to setup a WebSphere Portal instance using these services.

Please RSVP for this by Thursday, April 23rd - http://spreadsheets.google.com/a/isostech.com/viewform?hl=en&cfg=true&formkey=cFVTN2RYVGdtanFkejJZWXZvMXBNR1E6MA

By its nature, the domain encompassed by a rules engine is constantly evolving.  When the number of rules encompassed by the engine is small, it can be a simple matter to determine the behavior of the system.  A rules engine can quickly become responsible for managing thousands of rules, however.

While business needs are initially met without knowing the nature of the rules and their relationships, a time will often come when the business users want reporting on the rules managed by the rules engine.  If the rules are managed using a relational model or a reporting tool is bundled with the rules engine, this is a trivial concern.  However many rules engines use proprietary formats to store their rules and have insufficient reporting capabilities.

When this happens, a solution must come from the development front.  Such was the case with Avnet.

Business Needs
Avnet adopted the Blaze rules engine from Fair Isaac as a pricing engine.  This pricing engine used a series of XML files to store all of the rules for editing and a compiled binary file for runtime execution.  Though the engine met the pricing needs, the tools surrounding it did not provide the transparency into the rules required by the business.  Determining the relationship between the rules was a cumbersome process requiring the analysis of multiple XML files to answer even the simplest of queries.  The responsibility for performing these queries fell on the shoulders of the developers.  Avnet needed a solution to convert the contents of the rules into a form that could more easily be queried, reducing the turnaround time of the queries.  Additionally, any solution would have to be extensible enough to allow for future changes to the structure of the rules.

Isos Technology – Providing a Solution
Isos technology was able to bring years of enterprise development experience to the table to provide a solution.  The first step was analyzing the rule structure as defined in the templates used by Blaze.  An object model was created to capture the existing rule structures.  This model was designed to be flexible enough to allow for future rule structure changes, such as the addition of new classes of rules to the system.  Once the object model was created, collaboration with an Avnet database architect was done to create a flexible data model.  The object model was implemented in Java using the Spring framework.  The implementation was crafted to be flexible, allowing new rule classes to be added without changing the underlying application code.  The code was deployed to WebSphere Application Server and scheduled to run on a nightly basis, giving the business historical extracts of the rule contents.

Benefits to Avnet
With the rule extraction running on a nightly basis, complex queries can be run against recent versions of the rules.  This reduces the time required to perform queries and increases accuracy.  Consequently, errors in pricing can be tracked down quicker and rule duplication can be minimized.  Additionally, rules that are no longer needed may be flagged for removal from the system.  With the representation of the rules in a relational database, the foundation exists for creating a system where the business users can perform queries against the rules without the involvement of development, freeing the limited time of the developers.

Technologies Used

• Blaze Rules Engine
• Java 5
• Spring 2.0.3
• WebSphere Application Server 6.1
• Oracle 9i

When the stakeholders at a major healthcare management and services company initially conceptualized their new management portal, they envisioned a centralized view of all environment events, business processes and configurations that would serve as the hub for the portal platform. The goal of this “centralized portal” was to bring clarity and responsiveness to the company’s clients and application configurations while providing real time snapshots and historical reporting for their system business processes.

Transforming this concept into an implemented business solution required industry experts and a flexible architecture. The stakeholders recognized that the foundation of this solution must allow for a high level of extensibility, allowing new modules to be incorporated into the portal with minimal modifications to existing modules. They also recognized the need for technology professionals with domain expertise to evaluate available technologies and provide implementation efforts. With these requirements in mind, they elected to acquire the consulting services of Isos Technology.

Marriage of Business Needs and Technical Expertise

The driving forces behind the Management Portal were the business requirements to provide their team with an intuitive means for adding and configuring new clients on the platform, managing component application, viewing metadata from supporting business processes, and viewing application event logs.

Armed with industry experience and specific portal domain expertise, the Isos team began to construct the foundation for company’s first JSR 168 compliant portal application. Isos consultants quickly began to design, implement and deliver various portlets designed to define, edit and monitor our clients business entities and applications. This process demanded that the Isos team work closely with the stakeholders to gather the requirements necessary to ensure precise design features and overall usability while ensuring compliance with organization technical guidelines.

Integration of the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) Application was needed to support the portal application, capturing the status of existing and future the company’s business processes. To accomplish this goal, Isos consultants created a client event API which allows logging of events by standalone applications and web applications to the ESB through the use of Plain Old Java Object (POJOs) utilizing Java Messaging Services and Web Services as communication bridges. Now the requirement for the clarity of internal business process was accessible through the facing portal application via HTTP.

These efforts culminated in a foundation for existing applications to broadcast status information that can be received and distributed through an intuitive portal interface.

“Isos Technology provided us with excellent industry experience and superior technical ability. Beyond their ability to manage the sure complexity of the task at hand, the Isos consultants also brought a sense of urgency and were able to expedite the extraction of business requirements from stakeholders and then deliver those in eloquent solutions.”

- IT Manager – Architecture, Framework Management

Technology Used:
• JBoss Portal Server 2.6.3
• JBoss ESB 4.2
• JSR 168
• Maven 2
• JBoss AS 4.2.2
• Oracle 10g
• Spring 2.5
• Hibernate 3.x
• AJAX
• Apache Commons

The common approach to purchasing computer hardware is to buy a system that is close to the top-of-the-line at the time of purchase and that will be able to run the prevalent software packages at the time of purchase. This is similar to the approach used when purchasing other appliances, such as washing machines or refrigerators. There is an inherent flaw in this approach, however. The time between the purchase date and the date the appliance will become obsolete is much quicker for a computer than for other appliances. A good refrigerator, if properly maintained, will continue to keep food cold for over a decade. A computer, however, will probably not run all of the software that a user needs five years down the road.

A different approach is needed. Where a normal appliance primarily serves one function, such as keeping food cold or washing clothes, the nature of the computer allows for tasks that may be defined in the future. The current common tasks are fairly easy to identify, however. These tasks include web browsing, email, working with spreadsheets and text documents, and storing photos and music. Web browsing requires an Internet browser, bundled with any modern computer. Email may require special software. Increasingly sophisticated web-based email services have taken the place of software installs in many instances, however. Working with spreadsheets and text documents traditionally requires special software. Storing photos and music requires storage space which grows as the media collection grows. Accounting for the cost of the word processing software and potential costs for additional storage increases the investment required in the computer system, and will most likely require additional investments in the future. If only there were a way to use a browser for editing documents and storing files…

Enter cloud computing. Cloud computing introduces a strategy for leveraging the computing power and storage space of robust enterprise servers to host applications and data for users. These server clouds are composed of machines which are beyond the resources of the average home user or small business. The organizations which run the clouds provide their own IT departments to perform maintenance and upgrades as needed. Because the clouds are utilized by a wide base of users, the costs are much lower than for individuals buying software licenses and hardware. Small businesses utilizing this approach to computing also have the added benefit of not needing to staff IT departments. In general, all that is needed is a computer with a web browser and an Internet connection.

Adopting the cloud computing model is a drastic change from the way most people approach computers. In the traditional model, users know, approximately, where all of their software and, more importantly, data is housed. When software and data exists in the cloud, however, the actual location is not known by the user. This makes some users nervous about their data. Before discussing why using cloud servers makes sense, I want to discuss two technology examples in use by most Americans.

The first example is the debit card. Over the last twenty years, debit cards have become a more common form of commerce than physical currency. Debit cards make more sense because of the actual purpose of money. At its root, money is intended as a storage mechanism for time and effort that can be exchanged for goods and services. Why should time and effort be constrained to a physical medium? The answer is that it shouldn’t. A consumer shouldn’t be constrained to only make purchases if they have the cash on hand. As long as there is a repository, the bank, which is responsible for tracking and an access mechanism, the debit card, the consumer should be able to make purchases. The convenience of being able to access one’s monetary stores without having to have physical currency on hand is the primary reason that debit cards have become so prevalent.

The second example is the cell phone. Over the last century, the telephone went from a novel device to an integral part in the lives of most Americans. People were tied to the location of a physical phone line until the advent of the cell phone. With the adoption of cell phones, people are now able to reach others and be reached wherever they go, barring the absence of cell phone coverage. This change has brought telephone communication closer to its true nature. When a person calls a phone number, they are generally trying to contact a specific person, not the desk on which the phone rests.

In both of these examples, technology has evolved to match the intent of the core concepts. Cloud computing brings a similar actualization to computing. The data that a user stores and works with on a computer shouldn’t be bound to a single physical machine. The data should be accessible where the user is. In traditional computing, the user either has to have access to the machine which contains the data or a physical storage medium containing the data. As with money, this is the same as binding an idea to a physical object. With cloud computing the physical storage is not relevant to the user. As long as they are on a computer that can access and manipulate the data without being encumbered by its physical storage. Additionally, tools for modifying data, such as text and spreadsheet editors, are commonly available from cloud computing providers. And, as an additional benefit, the nature of cloud computing allows users to share their data with others for collaborative tasks. Furthermore, innovations in cell phone technology now allow web access on phones. Many cloud computing providers provide tools for accessing data stored in their server clouds to cell phone users.

Does this mean that cloud computing is an ideal solution for everyone? The answer is no. Currently, there are applications that are only accessible as locally installed applications. The types of applications available in the cloud are constantly growing, though. For the average home user or small business, however, cloud computing provides an ideal solution to many common problems. Users can access their information on any computer with a compliant web browser, whether a desktop machine, laptop, or cell phone. Collaboration is made easy. The need for in depth technical knowledge or an IT department is removed. Software licensing and hardware costs are lessened because the user only needs to concern them with finding a web browser that can connect to their server cloud.

Business Needs
The key requirements of the solution beyond the portal design, installation, and configuration was the need for a variety of charts and graphical layouts. These views require frameworks to provide the ability to enhance the portal with geographical maps, charts and gauges. In addition, there was a requirement for portlets to provide access, within the same user session, to enterprise application running on various servers. Each of these portlets needed to be cooperative and responsive to each other when changes occur.

Isos Technology - Simplifying the View
Among the most impressive pieces of functionality built into CSK’s portal is the ability for any manager to request real time sales information across the entire company and then drill down by organizational units (Division, Region, District and Stores). At the same time, managers can track inventory without needing to open up a new terminal window or browser with a separate login to gather critical information. Isos consultants exercised their expertise with open-source Java frameworks along with their portal experience to provide this functionality. This level of functionality helps a large company like CSK Auto become more responsive and efficient.

“Isos Technology provided consultants with the abilities needed to address the complexities that come with any progressive technical endeavor. Their consultants supplied more than just development expertise; they were integral during the whole life cycle, from installation to deployment of our portal environment. When portal fix-packs were required, the Isos consultants worked closely with IBM to make sure our project remained on track. The Isos team was paramount to the success of our Enterprise portal project.”

- Mike Amidei, Vice President of Information Systems

Benefits To CSK
So what has CSK Auto achieved? A much simpler, integrated work environment with access to applications through a single user interface, an integrated work environment without concern for the complexities of back-end integration; improved knowledge sharing and employee productivity. The portal application has provided CSK’s managers the flexibility to customize their view of daily sales information along with access to third party portlets that give them regional weather, maps, news, and stock quotes.

“The overall goal was to create a portal that would allow managers to see different views of sales data in a flexible and customizable way. This is what we’ve accomplished using IBM’s Portal Software. Our managers now have instant access to real-time sales numbers from the current hour, week, month, year… they define their view. These ranges can be displayed by company, division, region, district or individual store.“

“The impressive part is that my managers can get these numbers in various layouts using online geographically maps, charts, tables, and gauges. It has really changed the way we conceptualize our sales numbers.”
- Mike Amidei, Vice President of Information Systems

CSK Auto, Inc
CSK Auto, Inc. owns and operates 1,273 retail auto parts stores in 22 states under the brand names Checker Auto Parts, Schuck’s Auto Supply, Kragen Auto Parts, and Murray’s Discount Auto Stores.

www.cskauto.com

Key Components:

• Platform: Dell load balanced servers running SUSE Linux 9.3
• IBM 570 iSeries Database Server
• IBM WebSphere Portal 5.1.0.3
• Java Frameworks: Spring, Hibernate, Velocity, log4j, Quartz and Jakarta Commons
• JSR 168 Portlet Specification
• WSADMIN Scripts: Application Server Automation.

When: 6.26.08 - 8:30-9:30 am

Location: Isos Technology (60 E. Rio Salado Parkway, Suite 900  Tempe, AZ 85008)

Workshop-  Free Event With Helpful Tips on How to Increase Your Business Productivity and Professional Image Through Google Offerings!

Cost: Free

Learn helpful tips on how to increase your professional online presence, client and employee communication and collaboration as well as your overall business productivity.  As a small business owner and operator there can often be more work to accomplish than hours in the day.  Give your company an edge by learning how to use Google Apps business tools that can reduce the clutter with increased simplicity. Come network, enjoy lunch and check out this helpful workshop focused on providing small business solutions that will indeed cut the chains to your business limitations!

To learn more about Isos Technology’s Small Business Solutions please visit our Small Business Solutions page.

Please RSVP for event at Meagan@isostech.com and include the following:

1. RSVP in subject line
2. Your Name
3. Company Name
4. Number of Attendees

As a small business who is also expanding, Isos Technology understands the importance of small businesses finding efficient affordable business tools. As small business solution providers of Google, Isos Technology assists business owners by setting up their choice of services from a list of three bundled packages. Early adapters are ecstatic that they are able to focus primarily on their business, as the Isos team rapidly implements the tools of their choice. Unlike software licenses that only provide setup on a single network, Google Apps provides companies the opportunity to setup a web-based intranet aimed at increased communication and collaboration.

To kick off Isos Technology’s new services, Isos has partnered with local small business community leaders such as local Chambers of Commerce and Arizona Small Business Association to inform businesses of their new small business solutions. Isos Technology will kick off their service offering with a presentation at the Arizona Small Business Association Wednesday June 4th. The presentation will be held Wednesday morning from 11:30 am to 1:00 pm. The content of the presentation is aimed at informing and educating individuals of the benefits of Google Apps offerings. This presentation will be the first of many for Isos Technology, as they look forward to continually reaching out to the Arizona small business community with their service solutions as Google App providers.

For more information on Isos Technology’s new Small Business Solutions please visit smbservices.isostech.com or contact Meagan Barker at 480.366.5978 or by email at meagan@isostech.com.

Why, with all of the obstacles, would anyone devote time to crafting software for handheld devices? One word: ubiquity. A traditional application is useful if the user is sitting at their desk with their tower plugged into a nearby electrical outlet. Or maybe they are at their local coffee shop, trusty laptop open, latté in hand, pretending to revise the next great novel before their power runs out. Traditional applications work great when the user has limited mobility and at least a little bit of time to prepare for the work they will be doing. However these conditions seldom hold in the average day-to-day activities. Handheld devices offer an alternative. Generally, they are not cumbersome and require less time to recharge. Additionally, most people have adopted cellular phones as their primary telephones.

Accepting that handheld devices are a useful mechanism for delivering applications to users, what options are available for working around or through the inherent development obstacles? Before answering that question, it is useful to look at the changes in handheld development over the past few years. As a baseline, the time period that saw the introduction of the Palm VII in 1999 to the average consumer will be chosen as a jumping off point. This is not to imply that handheld development did not exist before this point. Apple Newton devotees would take umbrage with such an assertion.

The Palm VII used the PalmOS operating system and had the capability to transfer data wirelessly over a radio network. Development for PalmOS devices could initially only be done using C or C++. In addition to the base code which handled application logic, layout positioning of components was done using special resource files. In theory, any application written for the PalmOS could be run on the Palm VII or any other device with the same PalmOS level.

Around the same time as the release of the Palm VII, OTI (Object Technology International) released a Java layer to sit atop the PalmOS. This layer was analogous to the underlying C code, forcing the user to perform memory allocation and releasing. Additionally, the applications were dependent on compiled resource files for screen layout. The feel of applications written using these Java libraries was more similar to writing straight C code than standard Java development. Developers at this time were better served writing their code in the native C code, especially considering the slow performance of the processors.

Two other options of note were available for the Palm VII. The first was HTML written and specifically optimized for the browser on the device. The issue with using the browser was that it could not handle the same types of session information available to the desktop browsers of the time. Content delivered required an active Internet connection. A second option was to create a PQA, or Palm Query Application. A PQA consisted of compiled HTML code stored on the device. To the user, a PQA would appear to be a normal application with its own icon. However PQAs were actually browser applications, subject to the same limitations of pure HTML content.

As with the standard computing environment, different operating systems were vying for dominance during the same time frame as the PalmOS. Two important operating systems of the time were Windows CE and the flavor of Linux used on the Sharp Zaurus. Though both of these found adherents, PalmOS was the dominant force during this time.

As PDA adoption by the general public grew, another technology area was also rapidly growing: cellular phones. As with the Palm VII, cellular phones appeared on the scene prior to 1999. These devices had not been adopted by the public at large, however. Though the idea of always having a phone available may have appealed to the average consumer, the devices were bulky and expensive. In the early part of the millennium, however, the devices began to shrink rapidly, both in size and cost. Over the following years the American public rapidly adopted the devices.

What was the correlation between cellular phones and PDAs? As cellular phone makers were looking for ways to distinguish their devices some, such as Kyocera, turned their eyes toward PDAs. On the other side of the fence, application developers began looking toward cellular phones as content delivery mechanisms. If the more powerful operating systems of PDAs could be packaged with cellular phones, users would have access to larger suites of applications that could make use of the communication properties of cellular phones for Internet connectivity.

Both Palm and Windows worked with cellular phone manufacturers to get devices with their operating systems to market. These devices generally had displays that were superior to other cellular phones, more memory and faster processors. Not every cellular phone manufacturer bought into the need for the proprietary Palm or Windows operating systems, and there were a myriad of manufacturer specific operating systems available. This was a nightmare for application developers trying to gain market share in the cellular phone arena. If a developer focused on the wrong operating system or device they could easily fail.

One attempt to solve this dilemma was proposed by the Java community. The Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP) defined a subset of Java which could, theoretically, be run on any device with a Java Virtual Machine present. MIDP defined a small set of widgets that would be displayed using native UI components on the device, relieving the developer of the burden of laying out an application for a platform that might not even exist during application development. Though an admirable goal, this approach was not widely adopted. The MDIP footprint and application memory requirements were beyond the scope of simpler cell phones while not providing enough depth for the more complex PDA devices.

During this time Qualcomm proposed an alternative, BREW. BREW adopted a concept similar to Java’s write once/run anywhere tenet. With BREW, a developer could write an application that would then be compiled into a format that could run on any device that was BREW enabled. The problem with BREW was the cost of application development. Where a developer could acquire the tools and distribute applications with little financial investment, BREW required significant commitment. All BREW applications had to be tested by Qualcomm for a fee before becoming available to the consumer. Though this model helped guarantee application stability, it forced away many handheld developers who did not want to invest large sums of money up-front on products that might not sell on a platform that might not gain wide consumer acceptance.

As handheld devices became more complicated, combining better displays, more memory and better processors, a second iteration of the MIDP specification was created. This version of the specification addressed issues from the first specification, adding many features such as the gaming canvas. Implementations of the specification were created for several operating systems, including PalmOS and Windows Mobile (the re-branded Windows CE/PocketPC platform). At the same time, the browsers on handheld devices became more powerful, allowing for the use of sessions on devices.

In addition to the changes to MIDP, both the PalmOS and Windows Mobile operating systems were updated. Though new libraries were added, the basic development model for PalmOS remained unchanged. Windows Mobile, on the other hand, moved to the .NET Compact framework. The same tools used to create normal Windows applications could be used to create Windows Mobile applications.

In the past year the water has gotten muddier. Google has announced the release of its Linux based Android operating system. Additionally, Apple has stated its intention to release the SDK for the popular iPhone line.

The constant flux in the handheld development environment is daunting to many developers. Should a developer use MIDP and target multiple platforms or focus on a single platform such as PalmOS or Windows Mobile? Unfortunately there is not a clear-cut solution. Most times the answer is based on the cellular provider of the developer’s business. Some providers only support devices with a single OS. At other times, there may be a range of devices available. For developers creating applications for users outside of their own company the decision is more harrowing. Choosing the wrong platform could be the death of a smaller company.

There may be some hope, however. As devices have continued to evolve, web browsing capabilities and connectivity have also improved. With these improvements developers may opt to adopt an approach similar to that used for the traditional computing environment: pure web applications. Some in the development community, such as ZK (http://zkoss.org), have begun providing server-side toolkits that allow for rich applications in the same vein as AJAX applications for traditional browsers. Though these applications are only available when a user has connectivity and still possess limitations on content, properly designed applications have the potential to hit a larger share of the handheld market than application targeted toward specific operating systems.