ERCP - Embedded Rich Client Platform, soon with the first release of eRCP

I read in the mailing list for the ERCP project, they is close to the very first release of the eRCP, release 1.0 it is planned to be released 9/6-2006.

It is very interesting; the intent of ERCP project is to extend the Eclipse Rich Client Platform (RCP) to embedded devices. eRCP is largely a set of components which are subsets of RCP components. It basically enables the same application model used on desktop machines to be used on devices.

Why do I think it interesting?

eRCP have some interesting components:
Core Runtime - the Eclipse Core which provides OSGI and Extension Point Framework support.
eSWT - The embedded Standard Widget Toolkit which is a subset of desktop SWT API.
SWT Mobile Extensions - a set of widgets and dialogs which are mobile device specific
eUpdate - a simplified API and interface for dynamically updating device software

I like Java standards, but what is this, is it Java standards?
No, not all of the componets!
OSGI is not new to Java ME or to the JCP, because we already have JSR 232 [Mobile Operational Management].

eSWT is not a standard, but Nokia have talked about for a long time that they will support next generation Java platform with eSWT. Nokia think the performance will increase for GUI mobile application. I have also read in newsgroups some developers think it is easier to develop good GUI application using C++ instead of Java for the symbian platform, I don’t know if is correct but with eSWT it will change.

I think we will have to new GUI toolkit eSWT and AGUI, we (developers) need to support them both.

But I am positive because I would like to have success for Java ME/CDC platform at least! I don’t think Java ME/CDC1.0/PP1.0 have been a success so far, not so many good devices have we seen.

I think we have devices during 2007 supporting Java ME/CDC1.1/Personal Basis Profile 1.1 profile with eSWT and other devices supporting Java ME/CDC1.1/Personal Profile 1.1 with AGUI (like the SavaJe phone).
But of course I would like companies (with eSWT support) like Nokia to support also Java ME/CDC1.1/Personal Profile 1.1 with AGUI.