Ubiquitous Software: When Worlds Collide

Ubiquitous Software: When Worlds Collide
Author: Eric Everson, Founder MyMobiSafe.com

With deep roots in the mobile software environment, something I’ve been toying with for a longtime now is the concept of the Ubiquitous Software Environment (USE). In the computing industry this concept has largely been stifled as despite modest attempts by the competitive market, there remains one primary Operating System (OS) thus ubiquity is already fairly established – in some backward sense of the concept anyway. In the mobile/wireless environment however, this concept couldn’t seem farther from reality; from the very onset of the wireless industry there have been a myriad of Mobile Operating Systems (MOPS) that comprise this eclectic environment.

Today as mobile software developers we’re forced to swallow the jagged pill which suggests that Java is the answer to ubiquity in the mobile application arsenal. To take a refreshing look at the very concept of USE, if a device must be “enabled” to ensure software compatibility, haven’t we missed the boat completely? Consider for a moment the vulnerability that a platform like Java faces; what if the industry as a whole decided that it’s just not conducive to their interests to produce Java-enabled handsets? As if in a fleeting moment, the “ubiquity” that once seemed so unanimous would have all but disappeared in an enchanted stroke of evil genius.

This calls me to question our precedent approach of enabling from the MOPS level; USE can only truly exist if a standard of self-adapting to the OS or MOPS is introduced within the application itself. Imagine a world of application content where the traditional confines of OS or MOPS compatibility is all but erased… this is the USE I dream about.

I know that despite magnificent strides in mobile device specifications that the mobile environment is not quite ready to handle such a robust paradigm shift throughout the wireless industry. On the other hand, as the line that separates the mobile and computer-based application environment continues to diminish, this is an opportunity that is imminently on the horizon. Realistically, Ubiquitous Mobile Applications (UMAs) will be required to overcome the decades of proprietary technologies that comprise the wireless industry. On the bright side, we’ve already got a plethora of mobile software development kits at our disposal. With the harbinger of impressive design specs in mobile device processing on the horizon, the only question that remains is when will the worlds collide?

Your go-to guy in innovative technologies,
Eric Everson “The MobileTech”

Eric Everson is a leading mobile technologies researcher and is the founder of MyMobiSafe.com. If you would like to contact Eric Everson for interview or with research related inquiries contact him directly at EricEverson@Hotmail.com.