Sony Ericsson and Mobile Complete today unveiled the Sony Ericsson Virtual Lab - a remote testing service designed to reduce the time and resources required to develop and test Java ME based applications for Sony Ericsson phones. The on-line service is available globally to all members of Sony Ericsson Developer World and provides support for pre-commercial mobile phones released by the company.

The Virtual Lab offers registered Sony Ericsson Developer World Community members early access to pre-commercial, Java ME based Sony Ericsson phones for real-time testing of applications including games. This on-line service allows developers to remotely access 2007 phones that are not yet commercially available , maximizing the valuable time window to bring quality products to market, including applications at market launch of a new phone.

The service has initially gone live with six of the most popular mass-market feature phone models announced in 2007 and with more phones to become available as soon as possible after Sony Ericsson's official press announcements.

Five of the phone models available for remote testing as of today - the Sony Ericsson W880 and W580 Walkman phones, the K550 and K810 Cyber-shot phones and the T650 - are representative of Sony Ericsson’s Java Platform 7 (JP -7). The W910 Walkman is based on the new Java Platform 8 (JP-8) supporting Mobile Services Architecture (MSA), the next-generation Java umbrella standard (JSR-248), as well as Java Binding for the OpenGL® ES API (JSR-239).

Sony Ericsson Developer World’s Virtual Lab service is powered by Mobile Complete’s DeviceAnywhere platform. The service is available to any developer registered as a Community member of Sony Ericsson Developer World. Once connected and registered, developers can simply download a Java client that manages the remote testing session - including timeslot reservation and payment and application upload - showing a virtual view of the phone and communicating results.

More info here

http://developer.sonyericsson.com/site/global/products/virtuallab/p_virtual_lab.jsp