The next wireless hotspot is China: research

Developers of wireless software in China are ready for strong growth, with 68 per cent surveyed saying they expect to unveil new applications in the next 12 months, according to a report released on Monday by Evans Data.

The results should come as no surprise, given that the Chinese Ministry of Information Industry said there are more than 250 million cell phones in China, compared with 140.7 million in the United States. And the need for wireless LANs is also driving new applications in China, a highly populated country that lacks extensive wired communications networks.

Esther Schindler, who analyses China's wireless industry for Evans said: "Overall, wireless development is aided by the fact that China doesn't have an established infrastructure and cell phones are ubiquitous. The ratio of cell phones to landlines is higher there than it is here."

According to the survey, 31.5 per cent of wireless developers are implementing applications now, while 37 per cent expect to release applications within the next 12 months. Another 21.2 per cent said they expect to launch new wireless applications within the next two years.

They also listed the various devices that are capturing their attention. Making multiple selections, 43 per cent of developers cited cell phones, 33 per cent cited wireless LANs, 27 per cent picked smartcards, 24 per cent picked notebooks and 22 per cent picked embedded processors and custom hardware.

"Very few developers in China have the luxury of working on one device. They don't specialise like wireless developers in North America and other parts of the world. You don't hear them saying, 'I'm a Palm Pilot developer and that's all I do,'" Schindler said.

Palm, which earlier this year entered the Chinese market, has seen a 42 per cent increase in the past six months in the number of developers writing applications for its platform in China. Palm had been seen as a latecomer to China, which is the largest handheld market in the Asia-Pacific region outside of Japan.

"Wireless developers are shifting away from pagers and moving toward PDAs. This will be interesting to watch over time," Schindler said.

The survey also found that Bluetooth is the most frequently used wireless LAN technology, with 22 per cent of developers in China adopting it. That was followed by Wi-Fi, which had an 18 per cent adoption rate versus 37 per cent internationally.

"Wi-Fi is getting all the airplay [in the US] and is hugely popular, but that doesn't seem to be the case in China. It's one worth watching, however," she said.

In China, 37 per cent of wireless developers surveyed said they are considering adopting 802.11 technology in the future, but 20 per cent have no such plans.

And when it comes to wireless operating systems, the survey found 54 per cent of developers said they are working on Windows CE, 41 percent on Java (excluding J2ME) and 38 per cent Linux.

Meanwhile, 43 per cent of respondents said they expect to put their commercial wireless applications in the hands of more than 10,000 end users, and 54 per cent surveyed said they expect more than 1,000 end users to use their applications.

That would mean at least 3 million end users in China using new wireless technology, out of a population of nearly 1.3 billion.

Dawn Kawamoto writes for CNET News.com