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In an effort to bring more features to cell phones, Sprint is calling on Java. The company will add support for the popular programming language in all of its next-generation cellular phones due out in mid-2002, Sprint announced Tuesday.

The move comes after Sprint last week launched a Java developers program in conjunction with Sun Microsystems, which aims to build support around a compact version of the language called J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition).

Sprint now joins fellow U.S. carrier Nextel Communications, which made a similar announcement earlier this year, as a Java proponent. Both companies are hoping Java will allow them to offer users more complex media functions and software choices on cellular phones.

Sprint will follow Nextel's lead by putting Java into its entire phone line when Sprint launches its third-generation wireless network in the middle of next year, according to a Sprint spokesperson. The new network will offer data transfer speeds of up to 144 kbps, making the download of Java-based applications much faster.

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Java has also found support in Asia and Europe through the likes of Japan's NTT DoCoMo and Finland's Nokia. A wide base of around 2.5 million Java developers already exists to help design software, although only a portion of those focus on the J2ME version of the programming language at present.

"A lot of this is all about converting what historically looks like a cellular phone into essentially a terminal that can run a variety of networked applications," says Rich Green, vice president and general manager of Java Software for Sun Microsystems.

Green admits that third-generation networks have been over-hyped as a boon for the consumer and a benefit for the carriers that poured billions into building the high-speed networks. NTT DoCoMo, however, has already sold millions of Java-enabled phones and is beginning to profit from a strategy geared more toward data than voice, he says.

Sprint and Sun will attempt to build on the momentum generated by NTT DoCoMo and others by offering a Java developers contest at the Sprint PCS developer conference to be held this October in Las Vegas.

Users can currently load a small program called a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) onto Sprint handsets made by Kyocera and Samsung Electronics. The handsets run the Palm operating system and can be used to test Java-based applications for the contest.

Sprint will use a JVM from Sun on its third-generation phones, Green says.

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