The mobile Java tools project will include tooling support for the J2ME specification. It will feature a mobile tools offering for building mobile Java applications and commercial tools for Java.

Nokia will participate as an Eclipse Strategic Developer and board member. The vendor intends to donate components of its existing technology and build software to introduce tools for the creation of MIDP -- (mobile information device profile) and CDC-based (connected device configuration) mobile Java applications.

Both open source and commercial tools are expected to be derived from the venture.

"The overwhelming majority of applications that have been built on J2ME are games, but what we've noticed in the past year-and-a-half is a growing number of enterprise applications," with cell phones acting as front-end clients to enterprise applications such as sales-force automation systems, said D'Arcy Salzmann, product and partnership manager at Nokia.

Initial releases from the project are anticipated either late this year or early in 2006.