Friday, February 15, 2008

A Comparison of OSGi and Android

Last year, the Open Handset Alliance announced Android, a platform specially targeted at mobile devices. Due to the support from Google, Android received a lot of attention in the community. However, one of the hottest technologies for 2008 is OSGi, a technology rooted in the embedded world.

While OSGi recently got a lot of momentum in Enterprise Java, it is used in embedded devices for years. Like Android, it adds a sophisticated component model, class loader improvements and well-defined management capabilities. In 2006, Release 4 of OSGi was published, which includes support for mobile phones and other handheld devices. This resulted in JSR-232, a component platform for mobile devices.

Gábor Pécsy, Co-Chair of the OSGi Mobile Expert Group and one of the key persons behind JSR-232, published an interesting comparison of OSGi and Android.

What do you think? What are your experiences with OSGi or Android?

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