SophiaWindows article on Nikkei Industrial Newspaper, p.1
Dec. 12, 2003
Run multiple mobile phone applications - Sophia Cradle develops new software
A mobile phone software developer Sophia Cradle (Kyoto, President Kazunori Sugiyama) developed new software that enables users to view different contents in multiple windows. It enables a mobile phone screen to function as a computer display. The only procedure that is required is for an end-user to download the content in which SophiaWindows is equipped from the content provider. It vastly improves the functionality of a handset, such as viewing multiple Internet browser and using mailer and document editor at the same time.
SophiaWindows supports QUALCOMM's mobile phone platform BREW. In Japan, BREW handsets are provided by KDDI. Sophia Cradle plans to sell the product to content providers and handset makers on December 15 at the price of 300 thousand yen per content. Total 60 million yen sales is expected. Sophia Cradle is also eager to make inroads into foreign markets. On the other hand, Sophia Cradle will start development of the product to support Symbian and Linux, which will be adopted by DoCoMo for the third generation handsets FOMA.
SophiaCompress(BREW) article on Nikkei Industrial Newspaper, p.21
Nov. 28, 2003
Sophia Cradle's compress tool for mobile phone applications
A mobile phone software developer Sophia Cradle (Kyoto, President Kazunori Sugiyama, Tel: 075-754-5155) developed a compress technology that reduces a BREW program by fifty per cent. This compression tool enables more functions to be crammed within the same capacity. It also saves the communication expenses of downloading. The new product SophiaCompress(BREW) will be sold to game software developers. BREW has been adopted by KDDI, but there was no compress technology for BREW in Japan. Samples of the product will be provided on December 27, and the full version of the product in coming February. The price is 100 thousand yen. The sales goal is 30 million yen.
Sophia Cradle article on Nikkei Newspaper, p. 20, October 6, 2003
Oct. 06, 2003
There is a paragraph about Sophia Cradle in an article entitled "Venture 2003 KANSAI."
Sophia Cradle, one of the leaders of mobile phone software development in the information technology industry, has developed an architecture (or framework) for applications of the mobile phone platform BREW, which has recently been adopted by KDDI. Formerly, development of mobile phone applications did not require architecture because the capacity was small, much less than that of a personal computers. However, Sophia Cradle estimates the number of larger-capacity applications will increase in the near future, with the growing opportunities of sending animations through mobile phones, and therefore will sell the architecture to business software developers.
SophiaFramework article on Nikkei Newspaper, p.17
Sep. 08, 2003
Sophia Cradle develops mobile phone application framework for BREW
A mobile phone software developer Sophia Cradle (Kyoto, President Kazunori Sugiyama) released SophiaFramework v.2, a software architecture for QUALCOMM's mobile phone platform BREW. It functions as framework when developing applications. SophiaFramework v.2 enables higher productivity of application development and lowers production cost to 30 per cent. BREW has been adopted by KDDI, China Unicom and other carriers worldide. Formerly, development of mobile phone applications did not require much architecture because the capacity was small, much less than that of personal computers. However, Sophia Cradle estimates the number of larger-capacity applications to increase in near future. The basic license is a million yen per year. Another million yen is required per additional application. Sophia Cradle estimates 30 million yen sales during the first year and 150 million yen for the second year.
Article on The Kyoto Economic Journal
Sep. 08, 2003
Higher productivity with ready-to-use components
brought to you by mobile phone software developer Sophia Cradle
A mobile phone software developer Sophia Cradle (Tanaka, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto. President Kazunori Sugiyama) developed SophiaFramework v.2.0, a new framework for mobile phone application development platform. It will be released on September 10. SophiaFramework is a collection of pieces that are necessary when developing appllications. By providing these pieces, the productivity of application development process through planning, development and implementation is increased. Sophia Cradle will sell SophiaFramework to mobile game application developers and aims 150 million yen sales in the financial year 2004.
SophiaFramework supports the mobile phone platform BREW developed by QUALCOMM (California, U.S.A.). In Japan, KDDI has already adopted BREW. Today's trend of mobile phone application is the large capacity. It is due to the increase and improvement of a handset's embedded functions, such as scheduler, Internet browsing, Internet games and e-mails. Each of these are developed as an application. Therefore, the data capacity of today's handsets is about twenty to thirty times larger than the ones that traditional only havd voice services.
Therefore, the most important thing for content providers has been how to achieve the most effective development system. SophiaFramework includes many useful components for developing general-purpose applications, such as string processing, drawing graphics and memory control. With other components that enable porting of Java language into BREW, the productivity of application development has been improved. SophiaFramework also supports C++ programming language.
The price of the basic license is one million yen, and extra million yen for each additional application. Sophia Cradle expects that the currently dominant platforms such as Java will be replaced by BREW soon, and therefore is eager to spread SophiaFramework as a fundamental tool for developing mobile phone applications. To achieve this, Sophia Cradle will sell it to as many content providers which are on their way to rapid growth as it can. The goal sales is 30 million yen in the financial year 2003 and 150 million yen in 2004.
SophiaFramework article on Mobile RF Magazine, issued by C.media
Jul. 09, 2003
Sophia Cradle released SophiaFramework, a mobile phone application framework for QUALCOMM's application development platform BREW. It enables virtual multi-window systems, offers templates for application developers and automates event processing. The most important point of this framework is that it might be a de facto standard of mobile phone user interface in the near future.
SophiaFramework will standardize the mobile phone interface and will also save developers from having to utilize the complex process of graphical user interface (GUI). For users, it will provide an easily recognizable and easily handled alternative to the more complicated systems of the past by making an intuitive, standardized interface.
This easy handling of the mobile interface will encourage more users to use a mobile Internet services. In particular, SophiaFramework will be beneficial to older users who tend to be less accustomed to complicative handling of mobile phone functions compared to younger users. This product will also make it possible to use mobile phone applications regardless of the model, because the application is made with SophiaFramework. Therefore, as mobile phones become more multi-functional, SophiaFramework will be an application platform that will help to reduce the development cost of mobile applications.
Background of the development
When Sophia Cradle was developing instant messaging system for BREW, it directed its attention to the problem of BREW that there is no easy-to-use graphical interface, and came up with the idea of multi-window system. Then, Sophia Cradle developed SophiaFramework to provide high-quality menus and buttons that would be actually used in a sophisticated application. SophiaFramework is offered to BREW developers as a library including event processing, drawing and communications. These classes can be extended.
One of the features of SophiaFramework is to save engineers from having to code complicated procedures. It also solves the difficulty in synchronizing user interface. In addition, SophiaFramework simplifies the software engineer's work in application development, fixing bugs and maintenance operation so that overall time and cost of development are saved.
SophiaFramework can be compared to Windows for computers. Sophia Cradle's ultimate goal is to standardize the handling of BREW, regardless of applications or handsets. Spreading SophiaFramework will lead to industry norms of GUI components such as button and drop-down list, which would eventually make users' handling of different applications easy. It is based on the idea that computer programming languages share GUI components of Windows so that users are able to handle the software easily.
Sophia Cradle is considering to offer the application program interface (API) and a license that allows sharing of source codes. By making a firm reputation for SophiaFramework at an early stage, Sophia Cradle aims to lead the BREW application industry.
Mobile Business From Kansai: Sophia Cradle puts efforts in developing common platform for mobile applications
Apr. 04, 2003
DENPA Newspaper, p.21
Sophia Cradle, a developer of fundamental technology for wireless Internet, is putting efforts in developing a common platform for mobile phone applications by researching and developing application compress tool, multi-window system, Java broswer and instant messenger for mobile phones.
Utilizing two technologies
MTI Ltd. (Shinjuku, Tokyo) released Minna de Apple, a BREW version of a popular Internet community site Apple Town. Users can search friends and communicate with them through the site. Two technologies of Sophia Cradle, Inc. have been used in this application - SophiaFramework and SophiaAgent. BREW is a mobile phone application platform that has been adopted by KDDI since February in AU's handset A5304T. The number of BREW engineers are still low when compared to Java which was the dominant mobile phone platform in Japan. Therefore, development support tools will play an important role for BREW beginners.
SophiaFramework improves productivity of development of BREW applications and enables multi-windows on a handset screen. With this technology, the interface will be as user-friendly as Windows for computers. For engineers, the graphical user interface (GUI) programming is saved therefore reducing time and cost of development by two-thirds. It is adopted in the development of MTI's Cho-Search application.
On the other hand, SophiaAgent is a tool for instant messaging. It enables a user to know his buddies' status and to communicate with them by email, phone and chat. Interactions between handsets and other electric appliances will also be possible with SophiaAgent. "Messaging with a mobile phone will increase with this service," says President of Sophia Cradle Kazunori Sugiyama, "especially because of blocking message feature."
Sophia Cradle's other products include SophiaCompress v2.2, a compress tool for Java programs for all carriers, and SophiaBrowser v.2.0 which reduces packet communication expenses by 77 per cent. SophiaCompress is adopted by more than ten companies including major game makers. With this tool, 10 to 18 per cent reduction in sample applications in DoCoMo's development kit was confirmed.