Java apps soon to run on Palm Tungsten handhelds

Enterprise Java applications will be able to run directly on Palm Tungsten handhelds now that Palm Inc. has licensed IBM Corp.’s WebSphere Micro Environment Java run-time environment. Palm will offer WME on all its Tungsten devices. The run-time environment, an implementation of Java 2 Micro Edition that takes up about 600K to 700K bytes of memory, might be extended later to Palm’s consumer-focused Zire hardware line, Palm says. Applications written with any Java development tool will be able to run on the Tungstens through WME, but IBM’s WebSphere Studio Device Developer will be optimized for creating Palm-based Java applications, the companies say. Palm also will offer a free development tool kit that will work with WebSphere Studio Device Developer. WME will become available as a download for Tungsten users in September and probably will ship with new Tungsten devices starting early next year.