Is Developing IP Multimedia Systems in Your Future?
At lunchtime I sat with Greger Berg of Ericsson before he presented at Sun Tech Days here in Beijing. We talked about the Sailfin project, which compliments the Glassfish application server with a SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) container.
"It's a win win," he told me, when I asked about the partnership between our two companies. "We'd been working with it for a long time and then we realized the power of open source, and Sun was looking for the same piece."
So what is the big promise to the developer? "They'll be able to address the next generation telecommunications applications, which is going to be converged among mobiles, fixed Internet broadband and even IPTV. So combined applications are possible among those devices. Getting your messages on the television and doing your browsing and Flickr on the mobile and sending it over to to the TV screen. Then there's 'presence,' too. Where are you? You might be able to see locations of a mobile on the TV, for example."
I looked up "IP Multimedia System" on the Ericsson website, which stated that it "will provide IMS-based services that "will enable person-to-person and person-to-content communications in a variety of modes - including voice, text, pictures and video, or any combination of these;- in a highly personalized and controlled way."
How soon will developers be creating and innovating with this? "It all needs to be deployed by the telecom operatiors, so inertia is a factor," Berg admitted. "We have China Netcom and SmarTone Hong Kong, so pieces are beginning to fall in place, but we're still in the early days."
Then there's a matter of standardization between Java and Java ME, "which is also likely behind a bit." He smiles, and adds, "but of course they will coincide."
Does Ericcson have any tools around this up-and-coming effort? Of course! "I'm here to let developers know about the Service Development Studio (SDS)." According to the Ericsson website says that SDS is: "a toolset based on the Eclipse IDE for the development, testing and limited deployment of new IMS-based applications. SDS enables services to be developed and tested completely in a personal computer environment, and provides an authentic end-to-end test environment. Both the client side (mobile and PCs) and the server side of the service can be developed, debugged and tested using SDS. SDS can also be used as a cost-effective entry-level service execution environment connected with IMS networks."
Though Ericsson is based is Stockholm, "we're doing a lot of design and development work on this in Shanghai," Berg told me.
And it's all free! You can develop and deploy for 60 days, and then you need to provide information, so, as Berg puts it, "We can bond with the developer." They want to work on SDS with the developer, and find opportunities to co-create, co-market.
It was time for the keynote. We put away our chopsticks and went to the big conference hall, where a packed room was waiting to hear what he had to say. Like many of the Sun and other partner speakers, the call for cooperation, partnership with others, was a big theme, and in Berg's case, there's a big list. "We're looking for innovation from developer communities - application developers, app server vendors, standardization bodies, telecom players, Internet and media players, government, terminal vendors, equipment vendors, industry interest groups..." the list goes on.
Carla King reporting for Sun Tech Days, Beijing.
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