HTC Smart - Worlds First BREW Mobile Platform (BMP) phone

HTC has launched the first BMP phone in the market. After being the first to bring Android into the market it has now launched the first BREW mobile platform mobile phone.

HTC is trying to diversify its business. Over the last few years it has been mainly focussing on Windows mobiles. However, now it seems to be interested in other mobile platforms and being the first in launching any platform always helps. HTC has already lauched quite a few android phones already and now the first BMP phone. BMP is the lastest version of BREW, a properitery of Qualcomm.

'Smart' as its called is aimed at the entry segment of the smart phones market.

Good features:

Multiple home screens

touch screen

Stylish

very similar to the android phone

Facebook

Messaging

Drawbacks:

Auto focus in camera is not there

No WiFi

No GPS

Since this is the first BMP phone on the market have to see how it fares. Android took about 2 years to pick up (since it was launched during the global slowdown) but now its seems to take up a huge market share. We are yet to see how BREW will fare in the market. BREW was mainly focussed on CDMA mobiles till now, however with the launch of BMP it seems to make an entry into the GSM, 3G market as well.

HTC smart didnt make news in the market since its launch and even the platform BMP seems to be going down with no new phones being launched even after a year since the launch of its first phone

Brew Mobile Platform (BMP) Vs Google Android

Qualcomm's brew mobile platform (BMP) the latest version of brew has a lot of modifications compared to its previous version. The changes seem to be mainly targeting the challenge given by android, the open source platform from google. Qualcomm is a member of the OHA, a partner in the development of Android as well.

Programming support:
BMP has some unique featues like it supports lua scripts, flash programming, trigML, lua and trigML debugging capabilities. The combination of such powerful programming languages in one platform is a boon the developer.

Android on the other hand is programmed in java. In java you have libraries for all functionalities which make programming easy. The wide range of tools available to the developer makes application development a piece of cake.

Platform structure:
Brew platform is open which allows a wide range of applications to be developed. Even though the platform is open, the source is still not open. A lot of code is made open to the OEM's and not to the developer. Android code is also not completely open as well but comparatively this is more open.

Application Market:
One of the biggest disadvantages or advantage in being a BREW developer is that for the developer to post any application in the server and to be downloaded by the user the process is very lengthy and expensive. With the introduction of BMP Qualcomm claims that the certification process is greatly simplified and takes less than 2 days. But yet for the application to be available to the user it needs to be uploaded by the operator/carrier. This process may take lot of time. The same in the case of android market is very simple. The developer just needs to upload it in the market and the user can directly download it from there. The only difference is that the applications can be bug prone and its not certified. You may not get tech support for these apps.

Overall Result:
This has resulted in the google market having many app and very popular whereas the brew application market is closed and completely controlled by Qualcomm though its certification process.

Since many parts of BMP is closed there is only one BMP phone that has come into the market whereas it is now crowded with android phones everywhere. Surely it looks like time for open source...

What do you feel about BMP and android. Which platform do you prefer.

Related posts:

First BMP phone

Android phone

Possibly related posts:
Google TV vs Apple TV
Android vs MeeGo
Nokia adopts WP7
CDMA Iphone
MeeGo struggles

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brew and android

Android is released after Brew so you can expect all the advantages of brew to be incorporated in android.

One of the best features of Brew is that you can write extensions. i.e. plug in components of the applications and introduce new features into the application. This feature is almost non-existant in any other software platform. In other platforms such an application can be created only by native application developers. In android, there exists no difference between a native developer and third party. So anybody can write such applications even if the feature is non-existant.

In Android, this feature is implemented in the form of AIDL. You can write one application which provides a specific service to another app. (this is as good as an extension). Since this is developed as a new applciation it can be shipped later.

Another striking difference between the two platform is that brew supports only CDMA mobiles whereas Android supports GSM, UMTS technologies. Since Android is open-source you can expect it to support CDMA in the near future.