Kada Systems
Acquired byMyriad Group
Kada Systems developed an independent J2ME platform for embedding certified Java on mobile devices.
Founded
2000Kada Systems developed an independent J2ME platform for embedding certified Java on mobile devices.
Kada Systems competed by refusing to port Sun's J2ME reference implementation. Its own virtual machine and libraries were engineered for constrained hardware, combining a small memory footprint with a garbage collector that could allocate up to six megabytes on Palm devices, threading support, and a just-in-time compiler the company reported delivered up to fourteen times the performance of interpreted Java. Because the stack was independent rather than derived, Kada could tune size, speed, and memory use per device.
That portability carried across Palm OS, Pocket PC, Windows, and Linux and across ARM, Dragonball, Texas Instruments, MIPS, and SH processors, which let device makers and chipset vendors embed Java without building the capability themselves. Kada reinforced the position with a Sun Microsystems J2ME license covering both CDC/Foundation Profile and CLDC/MIDP, a Value Add Designation, and later JTWI and CLDC HotSpot licenses, plus partnerships that placed its virtual machine inside Texas Instruments, Cisco, and Analog Devices products.
Source: web.archive.org
Kada Systems depended on a market that formed slowly around it. It sold J2ME infrastructure to device makers, chipset vendors, and operating-system providers rather than to end users, so revenue tracked a small set of design wins and the licensing decisions of Sun Microsystems. Competitors in embedded Java included Esmertec, Aplix, Savaje, and Insignia, several of which pursued the same handset and silicon customers with comparable virtual machines.
The company also carried the cost of advancing the platform faster than the devices it targeted. Supporting Palm OS, Pocket PC, Windows, and Linux across five processor families required engineering breadth, and the Java handset market that Kada's own materials expected to take off in 2002 arrived after the company had already raised two venture rounds. Esmertec AG, one of its direct competitors, ultimately acquired Kada's assets and absorbed its technology.
Source: web.archive.org
Kada Systems marketed its J2ME platform into a market that was still forming when the company launched. Its own materials cited ARC Group forecasts that Java handset shipments would take off in 2002, that Java-enabled phones would make up virtually all of the more than eight hundred million handsets sold worldwide by 2007, and that new 2.5G and 3G networks would accelerate data transmission enough to make Java the default environment for wireless applications.
The nearer opportunity was the chipset and device-tooling layer rather than handset volume. Kada's virtual machine was placed inside silicon and platforms from Texas Instruments, Analog Devices, Mobicom, Cisco, and Group Sense PDA, and the company argued that device makers would rather license a certified J2ME implementation than fund an internal platform team. That infrastructure position made Kada a target for consolidation as the embedded Java field narrowed.
Source: web.archive.org
Kada Systems sold through technology licensing agreements rather than product sales. Device manufacturers, chipset vendors, and operating-system providers licensed the Kada Mobile Platform, and the company's materials describe its J2ME implementations as providing the industry's greatest return on investment and lowest total cost of ownership for those buyers, framed against the cost and risk of building a compliant Java platform in house. Kada was a licensee of Sun Microsystems J2ME technologies and held the Java Powered brand certification for its implementations.
A second commercial route was the company's Ready to Optimize Implementations service, marketed as Kada Mobile ROI, which delivered the platform as an integrated and optimized component of a customer's own product line rather than as an off-the-shelf package. Together the licensed platform and the integration service let Kada charge for both the runtime technology and the engineering work of tuning it to a specific device.
Source: web.archive.org
The Kada Mobile Platform was a configurable implementation of Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition for constrained mobile devices. Rather than port a Sun reference implementation, Kada built an independent virtual machine and Java libraries, adding smart class loading, a Java Native Interface, a garbage collector, multi-threading, and a just-in-time compiler reported to run up to 14x faster than interpreted Java. It abstracted operating system and processor differences across Palm OS, Pocket PC, Windows, and Linux and across ARM, Dragonball, TI, MIPS, and SH silicon.
Kada supplemented the runtime with its Mobile Developer Studio, a toolchain offering verified J2ME compliance, dead-code elimination, application packaging, an ahead-of-time compiler, and device debugging that worked within JBuilder, VisualCafe, and CodeWarrior. Customers could license the platform outright or engage Kada's Ready to Optimize Implementations service, which integrated and tuned the J2ME stack inside a buyer's own product line.
Source: web.archive.org