Research In Motion to Enable Wireless Handhelds with Sun's Java Technology

Business Applications And Wireless E-commerce Solutions Will Be Focus Of New Technology Initiative At the Java BusinessSM conference today, Research In Motion Limited (Nasdaq: RIMM, TSE: RIM) announced its intention to bring together Sun Microsystems' Java™ technology and RIM's wireless handheld devices, including the RIM Inter@ctive™ Pager 950, RIM 850 Wireless Handheld™ and BlackBerry™ Wireless Handheld. RIM plans to support the Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition (J2ME), as well as Sun's K Virtual Machine (KVM). RIM's membership in Sun's early adopter program for J2ME was also announced today.

J2ME is a development environment for solution providers and wireless developers that is part of the Sun Java 2 Platform family for enterprises, PCs and information appliances. J2ME is optimized for wireless handhelds and includes a Java virtual machine, APIs, libraries and tools for wireless devices. Applications developed using J2ME require the KVM - a small-footprint implementation of the Java technology runtime environment that runs on wireless handheld devices.

Support for J2ME and KVM on RIM wireless handhelds opens application development to a large, growing community of Java technology developers. This Java platform-based implementation offers benefits to end users, IT departments, solution providers and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) in a variety of industries and also enables the development of new applications in wireless e-commerce. Users benefit from the speed and network efficiency of Java technology on their RIM wireless handhelds, and gain access to a growing range of applications and solutions. IT departments benefit from the remote configuration management capabilities afforded by Java platform in a wireless environment. Developers and ISVs benefit from Java technology's easy-to-use, standardized platform, enabling rapid implementation and commercialization of business applications and wireless e-commerce solutions.

"Leveraging the cross platform capabilities of Java technology in RIM wireless handhelds enables new e-commerce applications for the emerging networked economy, connecting business users seamlessly to Internet and intranet based content and services," said Curtis Sasaki, Director, Consumer and Embedded, Sun Microsystems, Inc. "The combination of RIM's industry leading wireless handhelds and J2ME is an important step forward for the wireless data industry."

David Yach, Vice President, Software, at Research In Motion, said: "Java technology provides an industry standard programming platform that significantly eases the development and deployment of wireless applications. Combined with the security features embedded in RIM handhelds, developers now have all the tools necessary to create secure, wireless intranet and e-commerce applications."

RIM expects to provide developers with access to this new Java technology support early in 2000. For the latest information, developers can visit the RIM web site (www.rim.net) or contact RIM's developer support group at sdk@rim.net.


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