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SAN FRANCISCO—Mobile hardware and software developers are out in force at this weeks here with several new enterprise applications and other tools to help spread Java on device platforms.
Motorola, Nextel and Creditel announced they are teaming up to create a Java-powered point-of-sale (POS) device for Motorola-Nextel handsets. Nextel demonstrated the solution, with Creditels PowerSwipe add-on on the back of one of several available phones.
Designed for facilitating credit card transactions in remote areas, on the street or wherever a dial-up connection is not available, PowerSwipe takes credit card information and routes it through Nextels network for verification. A separate unit can print out a receipt using infra-red from the Nextel phone.
For its part, Nokia demonstrated its new Series 60 phones and officials predicted 10 million units will ship by the end of this year. Officials here said they are seeing 10 million downloads per month of Mobile Java applications for their phones. Currently 1 million developers are writing applications for Nokia, said Lee Epting, director of Nokias Developer Forum.
On the software side, Openwave Systems Inc. is one of the companies on hand helping developers bridge the gap between mobile devices and the enterprise. Openwave, the maker of browsers, messaging systems and user interfaces for mobile phones, announced the availability of a new software development kit and an alliance with Borland Software Corp. Openwaves Mobile SDK 1.5, now available, will also be bundled with Borland JBuilder, one of the leading Java integrated development environments.
Openwave officials said their company is well-positioned to put Java wherever it is needed. “We are the only company exclusively doing software end-to-end, we are not in the handset business,” said Gina Centoni, vice president of developer marketing for the Redwood City, Calif., company. “We are after the real killer app—usability.”