In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It.

TechCrunch has a great article about mobile fragmentation by Richard Wong at Accel Partners. The article highlights the fact that there is no long or short term solution to fragmentation and nor is there a simple answer answer to which platforms companies should invest in. As one of the pioneers in cross-platform development Golden Gekko has invested heavily in R&D and education of customers and partners.

Our platform recommendations vary from case to case but our general advice is:

• PR, communication and experience - go for an iPhone app
• Innovation - Android is the first choice as there are few restrictions
  
• Youth market - J2ME for non-connected apps
  
• Mass market reach - multi-platform is a must
  
• Business users - go for Blackberry and J2ME
  

Java/J2ME is our preferred base platform as there are clear development synergies between J2ME, Blackberry, Android and e.g. widgets whereas iPhone development has limited synergies with anything else.

One of the main limitations with J2ME today is that most users won't connect to the network due to issues with settings, data costs, security prompts, etc but the number of downloads for a like for like iPhone and J2ME app is still 5x to the advantage of the J2ME app.

Read more on
http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/04/mobile-fragmentation-forever/