So here we are at EclipseCon, which concurrently there's a sort of OSGiCon, if you will, running with it. And we've got two guests here, would you like to introduce yourself? Sure. My name is Joe Ridder, I work for ProSyst, I am heading the mobile business at ProSyst, so we put OSGi on mobile phones, mainstream phones, that's what we do. Right, right, right. And yourself? My name is Roman Rolofsen, I'm a software architect at ProSyst. And I'm mostly working on enterprise stuff with a combination of OSGi, etc. Right. And I represent a ProSyst in the OSGi Enterprise Expert Group. Oh, okay, so you're actually working on that spec there. So then how does it, are there enterprise OSGi things on mobile devices, do those two things come together, or are they separate things? No, they're not separate, I would say, since you see this in ERCP for instance, ERCP is an Eclipse code base that enables you to execute enterprise applications on mobile phones. So it's the mobile counterpart for RCP, and that is what Eclipse is based on. Right. And so what are some sort of scenarios people use for that? What are people running on mobile devices for business? They would be running, you know, rich mobile client applications like Salesforce apps, maintenance programs that people use when they are out in the field. Right. So there could be someone, like you're saying, out in the field fixing something and they need a interface back to the backend system instead of having a clipboard full of paper. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. So how did you guys choose to use OSGi for all of that? Well, it's a standard. I mean, was it like there was no other option or were there other things you evaluated? Well, that's a good question. I think you don't have that many options in the mobile space. Yeah. At least not yet.
2:00So, so far in the mobile, you know, market has been driven by standards and OSGi is a standard. Is there a lot of work sort of supporting multiple platforms? Like if, if I'm one of these field people and I go back to my desktop, like it, does it, the things transition easily or, or is there kind of a weird, you have to sync things back up or how, how does that, that sort of phenomenon work? If, if that makes sense. I mean, as an analogist thing, you know, you could be using a blackberry to check email or something, right? And then you go sit down at your laptop and the transition between the two theoretically is somewhat seamless as far as, you know, the same email is marked and you've sent email. Like, are these, these mobile things, something that's the one sort of syncs up back to the main server when they come back into the office or, or, or, I don't know. I mean, how does that stuff work out? Well, it does. I mean, there's, you need to sync your data. Right. With the back end somewhat, some way. So, so there is, you know, infrastructure that, that is an OSGi that helps you to do, for instance, data provisioning. Yeah. And initial provisioning. And that is what you get from OSGi. But then, and it's also, you can also have your own synchronization mechanisms built on top of OSGi. Right, right, right. To sync your data, your contacts, your contract sense, whatsoever. So, so there are interfaces indeed. Right. But, but when it comes to, to putting, um, OSGi on different phones, then, um, then that's, you know, a comparatively simple exercise because it's all pure Java, right? Right. Um, there's a bit of glue code between OSGi and, and the phone platforms to make it work. Yeah. Um, yeah. The VM, for instance, in the first place. Right, right. Um, but, but there's another couple of components that need to be ported, but in general, it's, it's pretty, pretty easy. Do you have to have sort of separate development tracks for each phone or how, like how, how much sort of write once run anywhere sort of effect that you get using OSGi? I think there's a lot of, I would call it write once test anywhere. So, I mean the VM, um, we move a lot of the burden when you want to deploy different devices. So, you have to test a lot and the, the main differences, um, are in the, in the GUI stuff,
4:04for example, the RCP or maybe it's a mid P application, but the, the logic part of the application is more or less, and you can move around more or less seamlessly. Right. I mean, what, what's your sense for what they're trying to do? Is it just sort of like make OSGi run on the server side or is it a little more broad than that? That's, it's a bit, a bit more broad, I would say. Once you move OSGi to the enterprise space, you have to, well, face several more problems, like database access, for example, class loading issues, et cetera. Yeah. So, and that's what we are doing. How to extend the spec to, to, well, get support in the platform and the user doesn't have to use it anymore. Remoting is a big issue. So, this is something you want to be solved by the platform, not in user code. Right. So, distributed applications, for example. Yeah. And you guys are at that, that transition between, uh, the sort of more traditional use of OSGi and then people trying to use it for enterprise stuff, right? Right. And moving it off of the mobile things. And so that's, it's, it'll be interesting to see what happens with that. Yeah. So what you will see this year is a really exciting, uh, Sprint is going to launch what they call Titan. Right. And, and Titan is a, you know, full blown OSGi stack that they put on, on their mainstream phones. Right. On, on smartphones, but also on, on, on feature phones. Right. And then after that point, uh, I mean, what are the different markets that those phones will be? Is it just, I guess, Sprint's only in the U.S., right? Or is it other places? Right. So far they only sell in the U.S., unfortunately, but I guess that that'll, that'll, you know, drive market adoption. Yeah. Yeah. That's, we're always like way behind here in the U.S. about fun phone stuff. And, uh, everything's always locked down and crappy to use. So it'd be great if that stuff actually opened up. Yeah. Well, great. Well, thanks for taking this time. Thanks. Thank you.