Impressions from the Brew developer conference....posted by qualqueg on the Yahoo thread.
clubs.yahoo.com
I have been at the BREW developers conference for the past day and I have some overall impressions. First, Q has really pulled out all of the stops in putting this conference on. They are really trying to make a big impression with the developer community. The various events like evening parties are quite lavish. The special effects, custom décor and attendee gifts show how important they feel this event is. The first day introduction of Dr. Paul Jacobs was accompanied by a very professional short film, live rock band, smoke and laser effects. It seemed a little incongruous to then have an interview by Dr. Paul, who was enthusiastic but typically low key.
The attendees, about 800 of us, are divided about 2/3 in the technical track and 1/3 in the business model, and wireless industry tracks. A large number to Q employees are also evident and are available to schmooze and answer questions. From the session questions and my informal meetings with other attendees, many of the attendees are currently involved in wireless application development, or PDA development. The kinds of wireless development represented are things in the early stage apps like downloading ring tones and SMS messaging apps. There are also a number of representatives of carriers. There are even some i-mode developers here with demonstrations of e-greeting cards and animations.
From the first day, marred by a California rolling blackout for half of the afternoon, there has been some skepticism among developers here as to whether BREW will be a successful platform to attract a critical mass of developers. Much of the problem lies with the application certification model which gives manufacturers choice over which parts of BREW they want to install. More importantly to most of us here is that it gives carriers what appears to be absolute control over what applications get put up on their distribution servers. This controlled distribution model is designed to ensure that there will not be any rogue applications allowed which would negatively impact the experience of the mass market phone user who as Dr. Paul stated, thinks of their cell phone as about as technologically sophisticated as a toaster. There is currently no provision for allowing anyone else but the carriers to have distribution servers.
The bulk of developers here are somewhat disturbed by allowing so much control to be put in the hands of what after all is “the phone company”. In my experience dealing with application systems for various Baby Bells, they are incredibly bureaucratic and slow to recognize new trends. There is a path for alternative certification of apps through an application certification service to be run by Qualcomm, but ultimately the choice of whether to put up the app lies with the carrier.
The carriers probably view this decision model in a very positive way. They must see payments from large software publishers to put applications in a favorable position on the application list. This is very discouraging to many of the developers here who view the current internet software distribution channel for things like games and Palm apps to be a very powerful model for putting out an incredible variety of innovative apps and letting the market decide. The cost of the certification process, though not specifically quantified, will limit or eliminate many niche apps. The whole fee sharing arrangement with the carriers is not designed to deliver free apps. So the jury is still out with many of the developers here as to whether to get on this train. At this point, many of the early developers of BREW apps will be porting apps to the CDMA world from elsewhere, PDA or GSM. BREW appears to make this task easier. The kind of viral contagion of developers that have supported the Palm platform do not appear to be in evidence here.
Today’s presentations include George Gilder about the wireless internet and Rich Sulpizio about multimode chips. |
