Natick, MA — (press release excerpt) — Venture Development Corp. (VDC) today unveiled highlights from a recent VDC technology market research report entitled “Java in Embedded Systems”. VDC's research showed that OEMs spent $117 million in 2001 to purchase Java technology including Java virtual machine licenses, bundled tools and services. VDC expects these markets to grow at a compound annual growth rate of over 34% through 2006. High growth areas will include mobile phones/smart phones, PDAs/PIMs and digital set top boxes.

Java for embedded devices is hot but the question remains: if you build it, will they come? If 2001 was the breakout year for Java in embedded systems, then 2002 is expected to be the ramp up to volume. “2001 saw the first significant shipments of Java virtual machines for embedded devices. Mobile phones, printers and PDAs were all part of the mix,” said Chris Lanfear, Manager of Venture Development Corporation's (VDC) Embedded Software Research Group.

Java offers a number of features that make it a natural fit for networked consumer devices including: platform independence, high levels of security, coding efficiency and a large developer community. “VDC estimates that about 20-25 million embedded Java devices shipped in 2001,” said VDC's Lanfear; “We expect that number to grow to over 64 million in 2002, not including smart cards.”

But VDC has concerns about the Java rollout. These include delays in deployment of Java phones outside of Asia, emerging competitors such as Qualcomm's BREW and Microsoft's C#, and ongoing questions about Java's system requirements and execution speed. “Although Java has substantial momentum at this time, it is clear that the race has not been won just yet,” adds Lanfear. “It is still not clear if, for example, Europe and North America will embrace Java phones in the same enthusiastic manner as Asia did; and the competing technologies are becoming better defined.”

VDC's research details the strategies of some of the key technology suppliers including long time Java players Sun Microsystems, Aplix, IBM, and Insignia Solutions. There are also a number of smaller companies that are starting to emerge including esmertec, Skelmir, NewMonics, and Kada Systems.

 
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