I love(d) mobile development with Java. Right up to the point that I found out that it was next to impossible to get apps to market through the catacombs you are required to navigate with each and every separate telecom provider out there in order to get your creation on their customers devices. At the time I first tried my carrier (Cingular, now the "new" ATT) "might" issue you a developer code signing certificate if you signed up for at least their intermediate level developer seat to the tune of overr $700/year. Their "premium" seat went for $5000/year at the time. So I get mighty tired of these endless articles that extoll all the money to be made in the mobile market and articles like this one that tell you how easy it is going to be to create them. That's true but why create them if no one else can ever use them?

Yes, I suppose the market is there if you are willing to pay the necessary tolls to the trolls that still guard the bridges to the promised land. In truth, I'm now making a lot of money as a mobile developer, way more in my first month than I ever made with Java by developing for the iPhone. I love Java but it took Steve Jobs and Apple to put the first serious crack in the hegemony that has been the mobile application development landscape in this country for some time. Now with Apple's new developer program, you are going to see a literal application explosion for that device. It's not because you can't do the same kinds of things with Blackberries. Rather it's because the wireless carriers have wrested the keys to the kingdom away from the device manufacturers in all but the case of the iPhone. Steve Jobs has made it possible for "two guys in a garage with an idea" to actually realize it AND get it to market.

You can read the unabridged version of the sorry state of the J2ME world at www.j2mesecrets.com if you are interested. By all means do so before you invest time and money learning to develop for a platform only to find out that you can't get to market. Until this is fixed, I don't care how good your IDE is. Developing serious business applications is merely an academic excercise unless you are well heeled or doing something internal. Even then you've got an uphill battle on your hands. The vast creativity of the Java community hasn't been hampered by the lack of tooling nearly as much as the iron fisted grip that the carriers have insisted upon having over applications getting to market. They'll tell you it's all in the name of security. That's Baloney. It's all about control. That's why their software ignores third party certificates like Verisign and Thawte an reserves the important API's (like Bluetooth and PIM) for their proprietary carrier certificates. Don't forget application testing at somewhere in the neighborhood of one to two thousand dollars a pop. That's enough to give you a flavor. You can read all you want of the sorry mess at the URL above. Just don't say you weren't warned.