Mobile applications respond faster with C++

Nick Jackson	Malcolm Groves

Nick Jackson, director of Business Development, Asia Pacific, Borland and Malcolm Groves, Asia Pacific Product Solutions manager, Borland talk to Prashant L Rao about the relevance of C++ for mobile developers and Borland’s business model for this market segment

* Mobile software has been getting sluggish when compared to where it was a few years ago. What’s the solution to this problem?

Nick Jackson: C++BuilderX is ideally suited for the mobile market. While JBuilder allowed you to build J2ME (Java 2 Platform Micro Edition) applications, C++ has a smaller footprint than Java. Java phones have been criticised for slow reaction time and the amount of software developed so far is disappointing for buyers of phones. The response time of mobile applications is more favourable with C++.

* Mobile applications are getting more complex. Are we talking about tens of thousands of lines of C++ code for applications that will run on Smartphones?

Malcolm Groves: Most mobile applications do not stand alone, they connect to server-based systems. By using mobile applications a company spreads the edge of its network to mobile devices. With C++BuilderX Mobile Edition, mainstream enterprise developers are looking at mobile devices. Borland’s partners have developed varied applications. In Israel, they’ve developed a location-based dating game with hundreds of thousands of lines of code. While in Malaysia it is used to develop simple and small productivity tools. The applications are becoming more ambitious.

* What’s Borland’s business model for the mobile application segment?

Nick Jackson: Like all our RAD tools, we sell the RAD application. In case of our other tools, we charge a royalty for deployment of the JDataStore, database and OS dependant elements. There is no royalty element with regard to C++BuilderX at this point of time. We are working with Nokia and Sony Ericsson to understand if and how we can charge a royalty on applications. One way of looking at this technology is that embedded software can make the execution of mobile programs more efficient. Cisco embeds our CORBA technology and we get a royalty [on sales of their equipment].

* Why did Borland pick Series 60 (Smartphones) as the first platform for its C++BuilderX product?

Nick Jackson: There are a number of indicators that Smartphone technology is going to be a platform of choice. We are working with palmOne and our tools can be used to create applications for convergent devices from companies such as O2. Nokia co-developed some of the C++ code for the C++BuilderX Mobile Edition.

Malcolm Groves: Series 60 was the first platform supported by C++BuilderX Mobile Edition. As we wanted to target the Symbian platform, a partnership with Nokia made sense. We’ve built the product to be framework agnostic.

* C++ has long been the language of choice for writing operating systems, office suites and databases as C++ compilers generate relatively compact and high-performance software. Does it have the same advantage when it comes to developing mobile applications?

Malcolm Groves: C++ Builder generates native code. A program that’s 6 KB in C++ would be less than 1 KB in Java but in the latter case you would have a Java runtime of 300 to 400 KB. Right now, CPU speed on the devices is the biggest constraint and developers need to squeeze every last ounce of performance. In the past C++ developers have not received adequate support from tool vendors. Our cross-platform visual form designer for rapid application development of mobile applications is in the preview stage. It will be released in Q1 2004. We offer UML (Unified Modelling Language) modelling with full synchronisation with the code and model. You can ALT-TAB and instantly see the change. C++BuilderX is integrated with requirements-management and testing tools—you can plug in any compiler of your choice. For the visual component there’s wxWindows, an open-source framework that lets mobile application developers create user interfaces with calendars and edit boxes. There’s database support with dbExpress in both Kylix (Borland’s Linux RAD tool) and Delphi for Oracle and DB2.