Mobile Java Case Study - Movilenio

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In June 2003, an executive team with considerable experience in Java technology-based mobile applications decided to go out on their own. They founded Movilenio Servicios Móviles S.L. in Valencia, Spain, to pursue their goal of designing and developing mobile applications. The company has since relocated to Madrid, and its titles now include both mobile games and business solutions.

In September 2003, Movilenio introduced a new concept to mobile gaming. The company developed the "KartHadasth" game for use as a marketing tool, to promote tourism for the city of Cartagena, Spain. Last year, the company had phenomenal success with a mobile game developed for Vodafone Spain. Ludo is based on an ancient board game from India, called parchis in Spanish, parchesi in English.

In its business solutions line, Movilenio has developed a tool for Ericsson that tracks people around the world. Other business applications are under development.

Movilenio has already faced - and managed - a problem that is all but universal among mobile software developers: To maximize return, an application must support many, many different models of handsets, yet the expense and effort to adapt and test hundreds of versions can be daunting.

The company's solution was twofold: to commit to the Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME), and thus take advantage of a standard platform that supports the great majority of mobile devices; and to use NetBeans to simplify and improve the company's management of both new and existing code. Instead of a single application having a different set of source code for each group of handsets, and a project for each handset, now each application has only one project and one set of source code.

Movilenio started developing mobile games for the most pragmatic of reasons: To develop a steady revenue stream to sustain the business, it needed to get products to market quickly.

From the beginning, the Movilenio team was committed to using Java ME, because of its widespread adoption by handset manufacturers.

"We wanted to develop our games with a pure Java-technology mentality," said Ignacio Roda Segrelles, Project Manager at Movilenio. "We wanted to take full advantage of the Java platform features, which make it so much easier to port games from one handset brand to another."

When the Movilenio developers started building games three years ago, they were using Borland's JBuilder integrated development environment (IDE). "When we used JBuilder, we had problems when we had to support a wide range of handsets," he explained. "We had to have different source code for each group of handsets, and a different project for each handset.

"Then last summer we hired a very experienced programmer who suggested we re-evaluate our tool choice. We tried the NetBeans IDE, and realized that it was really useful for mobile development. With NetBeans, we have only one project and one set of source code for each game, so everything is much simpler."

The NetBeans choice paid off quickly: Movilenio had built its highly successful game Ludo using JBuilder. That decision was not a problem when Movilenio was supporting relatively few handsets - not until Vodafone Spain expressed interest in distributing the game. The huge operator wanted Movilenio to support a much larger roster of compatible phones, and Movilenio was faced with a much bigger adaptation problem.

"We decided to port all the source code to NetBeans," said Roda Segrelles. "We now support more than 300 handsets on our compatibility list, all from the same code base. NetBeans Mobility Pack was quite helpful, and now every new project we start is built with NetBeans."

Using NetBeans the development team has also created a flexible architecture, including a kernel that is the foundation for all of its new games. Starting with this kernel, developers create the source code that provides the basic functionality for any new game. In addition, they develop a component that handles phone-specific features such as screen size, sound format, and the keyboard. This component can be readily adapted to support a new phone, while the base gaming module remains the same. When a new handset comes out, the team reviews its specifications, and then modifies just one component to develop a compatible version of the game rapidly.

The NetBeans Mobility Pack also makes it easy to integrate third-party emulators, which save many hours of effort by enabling developers to test an application's logic long before deploying it to an actual device. The Movilenio team rounds out its testing environment with emulators from Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia, and other manufacturers.

Ludo, the best-selling mobile game in Spain in 2005, is only one of a series of highly successful mobile games Movilenio has developed. Another hot title is Kakuro, a logical number puzzle game that's similar to the globally popular Sudoku.

After the tremendous success of Movilenio's games in Spain, Vodafone has expanded its distribution of them to many other markets. They're also distributed through other major mobile operators, including Movistar, T-Mobile, "3," and O2 - and now by MFORMA, a powerhouse games publisher. Movelino launched its Santa Claus Revolution game last year with MFORMA, which will also be distributing Kakuro.

Development time for the games depends on their complexity. A graphically simple game may take one or two developers as little as a week. A more complex game may take a team of three or four people a few months.

In parallel with its games development, the company is beginning to build its business application group. An application Movilenio is currently building under contract for a third-party firm includes a server-side component interacting with input from mobile devices. The team is applying the architectural lessons it has learned in game development, and it can even reuse elements of the gaming kernel in its business applications.

Movilenio still remains committed to game development, though, where it has enjoyed great success in a short time.

"Three weeks ago, we launched a new game, and of course we believe it's one of the best in the market," said Roda Segrelles. "In a short time, we have become a development company that is taken very seriously. NetBeans has been instrumental in that success."