Java ME in JapanJava ME in Japan
Brief History of Java on Mobile Phones in Japan
- The beginning of mass market Java ME
The finalization of the first two standards related to mobile phones from the JCP occurred in 2000, for both CLDC 1.0 and MIDP 1.0. After this, starting in 2001, the Japanese mobile phone market became extremely competitive. The first Java phone shipment was in January of 2001 from NTT DoCoMo and included DoJa 1.0. DoJa 1.0 is a profile, meaning it is comparable to MIDP 1.0 as both are based on CLDC 1.0. DoJa 1.0 provides similar functionality as MIDP 1.0, such as a user interface, networking, and persistent storage. However, there are a variety of differences between DoJa 1.0 and MIDP 1.0.
In January of 2001 the first Java on a mobile phone shipment occurred on the NTT DoCoMo network. There were two phone models launched at the same time, the Fujitsu and Matsushita 503i models. Both used internal VM solutions created by the handset manufacturers. Soon, we had the first JBlend™ shipment on a mobile phone with the Sony Erisson 503i in March of 2001.
The announcements of the shipments by DoCoMo greatly influenced the market for the other two major operators in Japan, J-Phone (now Vodafone KK) and KDDI as users began using Java applications on the DoCoMo phones. J-Phone and KDDI both selected our JBlend™ solution as their sole provider of Java implementations on their networks. Also, both J-Phone and KDDI decided to base their Java implementations on CLDC 1.0 using the MIDP 1.0 profile, unlike DoCoMo's approach of creating their own proprietary profile. However, to remain competitive, each added their own extensions to the rather limited CLDC 1.0 / MIDP 1.0 environment. A diagram of the J-Phone and KDDI Java environments is shown below.
