According to the company, the new tools and technologies will include a new plug-in for Eclipse developers and new features for the BlackBerry plug-in for Microsoft Visual Studio that support web development capabilities; as well as support for Gears, enabling web applications to run on BlackBerry smartphones.
Developers will be able to build applications using HTML, JavaScript and XML that get packaged and executed as native Java applications on BlackBerry smartphones.
Gears Support, planned for availability in 2009, will enable developers to create web applications on BlackBerry smartphones that can be used both in and out of network coverage. Support for Gears will include local cache, database and JavaScript execution, which allows web application functions to run in the background.
Alan Brenner, senior vice president for BlackBerry platform at Research In Motion (RIM), said: Supporting web technologies and services is part of our ongoing commitment to providing best-in-class tools and services for mobile application development on the BlackBerry platform.
In the first week of October 2008, RIM announced the availability of new developer tools for creating and testing mobile applications for the BlackBerry Storm, BlackBerry Bold and BlackBerry Pearl Flip smartphones. The developer tools include new versions of the BlackBerry Java Development Environment (BlackBerry JDE) that enable the development of mobile applications, as well as desktop simulators for the BlackBerry Storm, BlackBerry Bold and BlackBerry Pearl Flip smartphones.
