Java development tools maker Genuitec is working on innovative mobile Web development technology that will enable Web developers to build mobile applications for popular platforms, such as the Apple iPhone, without having to learn native development techniques and languages such as Objective-C.

Genuitec's new offering will be known as MobiOne and is expected to be available in an early version in June.

In a recent blog post on the technology, Todd Williams, vice president of technology at Genuitec, said:

"Genuitec is excited to announce the upcoming availability of mobile Web development technology, which will be available as a standalone product as well as incorporated into MyEclipse releases in the future at no charge to subscribers. This is on the heels of the recent release of WebKit for SWT, and will showcase the power of modern mobile development."

Williams added that many enterprises are in a dilemma. "They know they need a mobile/smart phone play to remain competitive in the marketplace, but picking the 'winning' device is risky and requires a lot of expense in both hard dollars and training time for developers on the chosen platform. It also involves the selection and process of dealing with various 'App Stores' and the siloed model that comes with them."

To that Williams added:

"But, imagine if you could write your applications based on Web standards and deploy them to nearly any modern Web browser on mobile devices? No App Stores, no special training. It's coming, and it's more powerful and significant than you think."

In another post, Williams said: "One of the sweetest bullet points of this tooling is the ability to use what you already know (CSS, JavaScript, HTML) to create rich, powerful applications for the iPhone."

Indeed, that is the key to MobiOne, to enable Web developers to use what they already know to create applications for the hot mobile platforms such as the iPhone, BlackBerry, Symbian/Nokia, Android and the upcoming Palm Pre.

Meanwhile, in an interview with eWEEK, Williams said that although the experience on the different popular devices can be excellent, developing native mobile applications can be expensive and time consuming because the development, delivery and user interface models are different for each device.