Sun Microsystems today announced full support for Mobile Service Architecture (MSA), the next generation Java platform for mobile phones, is available immediately across its mobile product line and the NetBeans Integrated Development Environment (IDE).

Sun, along with 13 other companies, including operators, OEMs and software vendors, participated in the development of MSA through the Java Community Process. The goal of MSA is to provide greater handset platform functionality to application developers and reduce implementation variation through the creation of standard Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and specific component clarifications.

The new capabilities of MSA allow for the creation of compelling mobile applications and services. Examples of these capabilities include: 3D graphics, personal information management, bluetooth, animation, web services, location services and payment services.

Sun products supporting MSA include:

• Sun Java Wireless Client -- a best in class, optimized implementation of the mobile Java platform with multitasking support to enable multiple concurrent applications. This implementation is available in both source and binary solutions. Sun Java Device Test Suite 2.0 -- a testing suite to help evaluate the quality and functionality of Java ME implementations for mobile handsets.
• NetBeans Mobility Pack 5.5 -- built on the award-winning, open source NetBeans Integrated Development Environment (IDE), the Java ME development plug-in delivers a whole new level of sophistication with easy drag-and-drop design, plus support for animation and web services-powered mobile applications and platform and device emulation environments, like the Sun Java Wireless Toolkit for Connected Limited Device Configuration.
• Sun Java Wireless Toolkit 2.5 for Connected Limited Device Configuration (CLDC) -- an award-winning software development kit containing build tools, utilities, and a wireless platform emulation environment providing the means for developers to build and test their applications.

In addition to these commercial products, Sun also makes available in the phoneME project in the Mobile & Embedded community on Java.net (http://community.java.net/mobileandembedded/) the source code for Sun's advanced phone and feature phone Java ME implementations, which support MSA.