Palm has been providing a download of IBM WebSphere Everyplace Micro Environment Java Virtual Machine (JVM) for several years. Palm will discontinue this service on 2008 Jan 12. Palm will continue to support the current version (v5.7.2, not 5.7.1 as the download page states) ,but not offer further upgrades.
No rationale is provided. The tongue-breaking named product is a Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME). The version Palm is offering for one more week is 5.7.1, while the latest version from IBM, for a variety of platforms, is 6.1.1.
This move should not cause any end user problems; any product that requires a JVM should ship with one. Alas, two products that do no ship with one are Opera Mini and Mobile Gmail.
There are several native browser and mail applications for the Palm, and Palm includes the Palm Blazer browser and VersaMail with each Palm. Sun has the KVM and Spotless JVM for Palm, but perhaps Palm users will enjoy a native Opera 9 browser soon. Then again, maybe not.
On 2007 Apr 5, Opera Software announced that it had signed agreement with Palm to deliver Opera Mobile in upcoming Palm products. Perhaps Palm will provide this browser as download to existing Palm users. Then again, maybe it was just the port of Opera to the Palm Foleo that Palm paid for…
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