Press Release
(extracted from http://www.siemensmobileacceleration.com/english/press/30072003.shtml)
Sun, Siemens and
Siemens Mobile Acceleration award prizes to the
three best applications in their first international
developers' competition "Java Masters"
06-30-2003 Munich
The three winners of the international Java competition
staged by Sun Microsystems, Siemens Information
and Communication Mobile (Siemens mobile) and Siemens
Mobile Acceleration (smac) come from Poland, Singapore
and the Ukraine. They were awarded on June 30 in
Munich.
A total of 2000 students across the globe took
up the challenge of Siemens and Sun to compete for
the award of best mobile Java application. One of
the conditions was to use the Sun and Siemens development
tools, so that the program would be able to run
on one of the Siemens Java mobile phones S55, C55
or M50. The young developers were also to hand in
a marketing approach and business plan if available
to show the marketing potential of their application.
The participants had approximately four months time.
The jury, which consisted of the initiators at Sun,
Siemens mobile and smac, put the applications they
received through rigorous testing and finally selected
the best ten according to the criteria of quality,
functionality, appealing and business potential.
The decision as to who would be standing on the
winner's podium, however, was taken by the consumers
in an Internet vote under www.javamasters.org.
Around 10,000 followers logged on to the Javamasters
website to vote for the application they liked best,
based on the demos and descriptions. Jozef Bernal
from Poland proved that car racing is an all-time
favorite on the mobile phone with his game "Wicked
Race" which earned him third place. However, the
competition included not only games but server-based
services too. Deepak Prabhakara, a student from
Singapore, won second place with an ingenious application
entitled "LocationBasedAlert Engine". Among other
things, this service reminds mobile phone users
of the upcoming birthdays of their friends when
they are in the vicinity of certain shops.. But
the application that delighted online voters most
was the game "Blazers" from Eugene Yatsenko. This
user-friendly game for the mobile phone in which
a small virtual being is steered along the "SpaceRoad",
impressed the judges with its well thought out gaming
concept, graphics that guarantee maximum fun even
on the smallest displays and finally with a carefully
developed business plan which received the smac
BIZ Award. The winner already claimed his prize
in June: a trip to the world's largest Java exhibition,
the Java One in San Francisco. In addition to this,
with the smac BIZ Award he got professional advice
from the experienced coaches of Siemens Mobile Acceleration
on how to successfully implement his business plan.
And of course the winners received their own SL55
- the latest luxury mobile phone from Siemens. The
runner up was also given a Sun Blade Kit - a workstation
for developing applications - to take home with
him to Singapore.
Siemens and Sun will repeat the Java Masters competition.
The aim is to firmly establish Java at universities
worldwide and to motivate young developers to devote
intensive effort to mobile applications. Effective,
well-designed concepts and business models along
with resource-saving programming are particularly
important for mobile devices. The newly developed
programs will be examined by Siemens specialists
and submitted to exhaustive testing. In the end
the developer will be able to prove the quality
of his program with the Siemens mark "Optimized
for Siemens mobile". If the developer wishes to
start up his own business, Siemens Mobile Acceleration
will help him with issues such as business models
and financing.
Further information can be found at www.javamasters.org.
