Sprint have recently announced that they will be implementing Qualcomm's BREW on some of their mobile devices. Sprint were one of the few CDMA based network operators to choose Java ME over BREW and even went so far as to invest heavily in their own Java application execution platform so this is a surprise move. In my eyes this is another nail in the coffin of Java ME in its current configuration.

While BREW has many shortcomings compared to Java ME there is one factor which really distinguishes it and that is the fact that it provides an entire end-to-end architecture with a built in application distribution mechanism (aka "application store"). At the moment it seems that solitary application execution environments just can't complete with an full end-to-end infrastructure. These ecosystems whose features include an SDK, application execution environment, search and discovery mechanism, robust deployment and provisioning solution, payment mechanisms, fragmentation management and administration are far more appealing to network operators than investing in relatively autonomous 3rd party application execution environments like Flash Lite, Java ME, .net CF, Python etc.

Basically if I was a JVM vendor I would be working hard to extend the on device Java Application Manager to become a sophisticated application distribution environment which includes the requisite backend infrastructure necessary to offer a full ecosystem. This would also provide large software vendors like Aromasoft, Aplix and Esmertec with new revenue streams beyond simply selling JVMs. Thoughts?

Update: I wrote something similar to this at the start of the year.