A Short Position Paper for W3C/OpenAjax Alliance Workshop on Mobile AJAX, Sept 28 2007
By Dave Burke, Google

There are several options for developing applications for mobile
phones today ranging from theoretically device independent
paradigms such as XHTML/WML, Java ME, FlashLite, and BREW to
device dependent paradigms such as C++ apps on Symbian, Windows
Mobile, and Palm. Development approaches such as Java ME and C++
provide a much deeper integration into the phones capabilities
compared with XHTML, and is the main reason why many popular
mobile applications are delivered this way today. However,
developing native code for mobile platforms comes at a significant
engineering cost and is reminiscent of the desktop environment
before the advent of Web technologies.

The Web has been evolving over time to become a powerful platform
for running rich internet applications. The "Web as a platform"
has been made possible through the AJAX model and the eventual
convergence of different browsers to standard technology.
Extending the Web as an application platform to mobile is an
attractive proposition given the cost of development of native
applications and the potential for convergence of development
approaches for the desktop and mobile.

To compete with native applications on mobile devices, Web applications must:

  (a) be able to deliver a responsive user interface,
  (b) facilitate running in an offline or "sometimes connected" mode, and
  (c) provide access to device capabilities.

AJAX allows us to deliver on the requirement for a responsive user
interface. The recently released Google Gears is an example of a
technology that facilitates Web applications to run in an offline
mode. Access to device features is appealing too, and can open new
doors to Web developers by potentially providing access to
location information, multimedia capabilities, contacts
information, etc. To be truly successful, the industry needs
well-designed, standard APIs and security models that in
particular do not compromise usability. It is this belief that
ultimately drives our interest in the W3C/OpenAjax Workshop on
Mobile AJAX.