Specifying new APIs and functionalities through the JCP seems a good idea at a first glance, right? This limits fragmentation in the Java platform, ensures the APIs are agreed upon by a number of stakeholders, and limits the adoption of proprietary APIs by manufacturers, making them resort to the "official" APIs defined by the JSR expert groups.

In the desktop and server environments, this seems to be working wonderfully well: new features are added and released aggressively, keeping Java at pace with or ahead of the most modern development technologies and other languages.

But what has it done for mobile development? 

Granted, MIDP 2.0 was a great thing and optional APIs based on it were created and adopted very fast by just about everybody. This opened new doors for the development of sophisticated Java ME applications using Bluetooth, file system, multimedia, location, web services, the works. However, this process seems to have stopped circa 2004. 

Take Nokia 3250 for example: launched in 2005, it had a nice API package for that time, and i liked it. Now look at the Nokia N96: latest of the latest from Nokia, has dozens of new hardware and native C++ functionalities, three new runtimes (Python, WRT and Flash 3). What is new on it's Java? MIDP 2.1 (zzz), eSWT (not a JSR) and IAP UI (proprietary). The core runtime support is the same as a 2.5 year old device. Where is the innovation? 

In 2 and a half years, we saw the rise of two entirely new platforms: Android and iPhone, dozen new runtimes for mobiles (Python, Flash, WRT, WidSets) and .NET Compact Framework becoming a serious contender. What have we seen in Java ME? MIDP3 has been in the works since 2004!

4 years is enough time for many new platforms and runtimes to emerge, but not enough for finishing a spec? This is my question to you: is Java ME lagging behind as an innovation platform because of JCP? 

Your opinions are eagerly awaited.

[]s
Daniel