• Motorola
• Nokia
• SonyEricsson
• Research in Motion
• Several individual contributors

This new MTJ release has been included in the first service release of the Eclipse Pulsar project.  In addition, the Pulsar QuickInstall now includes an SDK from SonyEricsson.

• The TmL project contains components that are useful on many mobile platforms, not just Linux. As the primary contributor to TmL up to this point, Motorola desires to expand the scope of the project to support other mobile platforms.
• The MTJ project contains some components that could be valuable to all mobile developers, not just those who use Java ME.
• Code for Eclipse Pulsar was placed in the MTJ repository due to timing issues. Since the Pulsar developers also work on MTJ, it seemed a reasonable location. There is a need for a more suitable and permanent location for this work.
• A new project, focused on the needs of all mobile developers has momentum, as previously seen from the excitement around Pulsar. By removing the artificial barriers of “Linux” and “Java”, we hope to provide a home for all Eclipse mobile developers.

It is easy to understand Motorola’s motivations in making this move, given their transition to the Linux-based Android operating system for many of their upcoming devices.  With that said, I do believe that this move is truly beneficial to the mobile development community.  While developers have to deal with the plethora of mobile device platforms and the associated fragmentation, consumers really only care about the results of development.  The more that the tools can help developers bridge the gaps between the various platforms, the easier it will be to get applications into consumer’s hand no matter what their device.

In many ways, this is a natural extension to my original goals of making EclipseME support all JavaME devices no matter which vendor provided those devices.  Of course, JavaME’s role in mobile devices has diminished significantly in recent years, so it makes a lot of sense to broaden the scope to other platforms.  For more information, take a look at the presentation or drop by one of the project mailing lists.

What the heck is Pulsar?  Pulsar is an effort of the Eclipse Mobile Industry Working Group, to make it much easier for mobile developers to download and install the various tools necessary to do mobile development.  In this early release, the project has provided an Eclipse view based on an Eclipse p2 repository.

Pulsar SDK Selection

In this early release, Nokia and Motorola have included the necessary p2 artifacts to populate the download and installation view.  It is simply a matter of selecting the SDK of interest and clicking the “+” button in the toolbar.  What is really cool about this is that the basis on a p2 repository allows the information in this view to be updated over time as more SDK’s become available.  Look for more members of the Mobile Industry Working Group to add their SDK’s to the SDK view in the coming months.  For a guy like me trying to develop for multiple different mobile platforms, this tooling is a huge win.

While the Pulsar tools are great, in some ways, the Mobile Industry Working Group is even more impressive.  Working groups are new to the Eclipse Foundation and the Mobile Industry Working Group is the first.  The group includes members from many of the leading mobile hardware vendors working together to provide a better experience for all mobile developers.  This is a significant change in focus for these vendors versus the earlier siloed approach to mobile tooling.  Just as I work within the Mobile Tools for Java project to help direct the project to provide hardware-agnostic tooling, I’m also involved in the Mobile Industry Working Group with the same role.  To be fair, these companies are finally starting to “get it” and are working very hard to provide the best possible developer experience.  The understanding of the need for professional developers to target multiple platforms is front and center in these efforts.