RIM Reaches Out to Java Jocks
- By John K. Waters
- 10/27/08
We're about to be soaked in promotions for the new BlackBerry Storm device,
but buried in the hype is something interesting for Java developers: a new set
of dev tools for creating and testing mobile-savvy applications for Research
In Motion's (RIM's) newest handhelds, including the Storm, Bold and Pearl Flip
smart phones.
The tools package includes new versions of the BlackBerry Java Development
Environment (BlackBerry
JDE) that's designed to enable "the streamlined development of mobile
applications," the company said, including the ability to develop an application
that works seamlessly on both touch-screen and keyboard-based BlackBerry smart
phones.
The complete developer tool update includes a new public beta of the BlackBerry
JDE plug-in for Eclipse, new releases of the BlackBerry plug-in for Microsoft
Visual Studio, the BlackBerry MDS Studio and Plazmic Content Developer's Kit
for the BlackBerry platform.
The JDE plug-in for Eclipse is designed for coders who want to build and test
wireless applications for the BlackBerry platform from within their Eclipse
integrated development environments (IDEs). Now in public beta, the plug-in
provides deeper integration with Eclipse and standard Java projects, said Alan
Brenner, SVP of BlackBerry Platforms at RIM. It also comes with pre-processing
capabilities that support a multi-build environment, support for the BlackBerry
JDE component pack version 4.3.0 to version 4.7.0, and the ability to install
updates of the BlackBerry JDE plug-in for Eclipse through the standard Eclipse
software update mechanism, he said.
Brenner was among the keynote speakers scheduled to appear at the Waterloo,
Ontario-based company's first ever BlackBerry
Developer Conference last week in Santa Clara, CA. RIM showcased
its new developer tools at the show, which drew an estimated 700 attendees.
Last Tuesday, RIM Co-Founder and Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis gave the keynote opener,
telling attendees that the BlackBerry is "one box it's wise not to think
outside of."
Lazaridis was referring to the delicate balance among bandwidth, capacity, performance and battery life that constitute the "physics" of the BlackBerry platform: Mess with one, and you affect the others.