RIM has already hinted as much at DevCon last year but according to BGR there are folks at RIM seriously considering using Google’s Dalvik Java VM (Found in Android devices) to be the flavor of Java they use on the PlayBook. The QNX team was asked this exact question at DevCon and answered that it is possible but they do not know the exact direction they will take yet.
The move to the Dalvik Java VM for the PlayBook could mean that Android apps would be even easier to port to the PlayBook. Developers would still have to modify their apps to follow RIM’s requirements and use BlackBerry specific API’s but it could be a huge boon for RIM. Many devs are waiting for RIM to decide on a Java solution for the PlayBook to allow for legacy apps to work on the device but I am not sure that is a good idea. RIM has really been held back on app development for legacy apps and they have clearly stated that WebWorks would be the main platform for cross BlackBerry Tablet/Smartphone development.
Only time will tell if this rumor actually pans out but I really hope RIM is considering something like this. It will be interesting to see if RIM simply uses the open source code for Dalvik or makes the even riskier move of teaming up with Google. I doubt the latter but who knows with RIM these days. According to the QNX team they can run quite a few different VM’s for different programming languages on the QNX OS so they might just implement both the legacy and the Dalvik flavors in a combined form.
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