Application Platforms for Embedded Systems: Suitability of J2ME and .NET Compact Framework

We compare Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) and the .NET Compact Framework as programming platforms for complex software on small devices. In addition, specific problems of the two platforms with regard to embedded systems (such as hardware addressing) are discussed. As a base for our comparison, we have ported a relatively large component middleware system to both platforms. Our research shows non trivial differences between the platforms. A performance comparison shows that both J2ME and the .NET Compact Framework exhibit similar performance characteristics with a small speed advantage for .NET. A much more important fact, however, is that on both platforms the usage of platform specific concepts yields considerable performance gains.