Daniel caught me the other day. He’s a mobile developer working on some nifty communications services aimed at Ethiopians throughout the world.
He’s got some chaps to create a Symbian S40/S60 version of the service he’s aiming to launch — and is wondering how difficult it will be to convert the application to work on other platforms (e.g. Sony Ericsson).
What’s your view?
If there is a Java app (which there may very well be since you say S40) it can be ported on to many other modern Java enabled devices. Some fairly easily and some may take a little more effort.
If there's a native Symbian S60 application it can be ported on to the native Symbian UIQ Sony Ericsson devices and many other devices running UIQ (Motorola?). The UI would need changing in addition to very minor changes to utilise UIQ specific APIs.
Porting to Windows Mobile may or may not be easy, depending on how well the original application is coded and how the different parts of the application are decoupled. But it will definitely be a lot more work that porting to UIQ.
Would rather depend on what development platform he used…
If the app really works on S40, then it must be Java and so should be relatively portable, especially to Sony-Ericsson. If it is actually Symbian (and so not able to run on S40), he's in trouble – basically it would need a ground up rewrite.
Most Windows Mobile devices do have JVMs these days, but there are about five different JVMs in active use and the integration into the OS isn't great. For a budget port Java is easiest, but for proper integration you need to code natively. Windows Mobile is still a very small percentage of shipped devices so it's worth checking how big the market is before attempting that.
If there is a Java app (which there may very well be since you say S40) it can be ported on to many other modern Java enabled devices. Some fairly easily and some may take a little more effort.
If there's a native Symbian S60 application it can be ported on to the native Symbian UIQ Sony Ericsson devices and many other devices running UIQ (Motorola?). The UI would need changing in addition to very minor changes to utilise UIQ specific APIs.
Porting to Windows Mobile may or may not be easy, depending on how well the original application is coded and how the different parts of the application are decoupled. But it will definitely be a lot more work that porting to UIQ.
Would rather depend on what development platform he used…
If the app really works on S40, then it must be Java and so should be relatively portable, especially to Sony-Ericsson. If it is actually Symbian (and so not able to run on S40), he's in trouble – basically it would need a ground up rewrite.
Most Windows Mobile devices do have JVMs these days, but there are about five different JVMs in active use and the integration into the OS isn't great. For a budget port Java is easiest, but for proper integration you need to code natively. Windows Mobile is still a very small percentage of shipped devices so it's worth checking how big the market is before attempting that.
If there is a Java app (which there may very well be since you say S40) it can be ported on to many other modern Java enabled devices. Some fairly easily and some may take a little more effort.
If there's a native Symbian S60 application it can be ported on to the native Symbian UIQ Sony Ericsson devices and many other devices running UIQ (Motorola?). The UI would need changing in addition to very minor changes to utilise UIQ specific APIs.
Porting to Windows Mobile may or may not be easy, depending on how well the original application is coded and how the different parts of the application are decoupled. But it will definitely be a lot more work that porting to UIQ.
Would rather depend on what development platform he used…
If the app really works on S40, then it must be Java and so should be relatively portable, especially to Sony-Ericsson. If it is actually Symbian (and so not able to run on S40), he's in trouble – basically it would need a ground up rewrite.
Most Windows Mobile devices do have JVMs these days, but there are about five different JVMs in active use and the integration into the OS isn't great. For a budget port Java is easiest, but for proper integration you need to code natively. Windows Mobile is still a very small percentage of shipped devices so it's worth checking how big the market is before attempting that.