When it comes to mobile development, Java got there first. But there's no doubt that these days, it's newer platforms and tools — including the iPhone and Google’s Android — gathering strong developer attention.

This week, the Java community struck back with the release by the Eclipse Foundation of a new Eclipse Mobile Tools For Java (MTJ). The most important development may be that this release brings together two notable mobile Java projects — MTJ and EclipseME — into a single platform for the first time. EclipseME has been providing an open-source Eclipse-based Java mobile development environment since 2003, with more than 600,000 developer downloads. Combining with MTJ moves the developer-focused EclipseME more into the mobile and telecom mainstream, with support from major players such as Motorola, Nokia and Sony Ericsson.

In the development world, Eclipse is the de facto leader in developing Java applications for the desktop and the server, supported by most of the industry's developers and large vendors. Eclipse is constructed as a development environment framework, enabling third parties to plug in software developer kits, tools and run times supporting a variety of development approaches.

"My hope is that with [the latest release of' MTJ] we can unify the developer base behind one project," said Christian Kurzke, Eclipse MTJ project lead and developer tools architect for Motorola. “Eclipse has good potential because in addition to Java, it already supports native code and Web 2.0, AJAX-style development, and it also has the potential to be customized for all the different embedded and mobile run times out there.”

Because of its wide support not only on smartphones but more basic feature phones, Java has been the target run time for a large portion of early mobile applications. But new platforms, including Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Android and even LiMo (Linux Mobile) are beginning to draw strong developer attention.

Up till now, enterprise developers and mobile developers focusing on Java have typically been separate groups using separate tools. As mobile development becomes more mainstream and mobile development on Eclipse becomes more common, that line may begin to fade, Kurzke said.

“The developer bases are fairly segregated at the moment, but that may change, as we see more iPhone-style applications where the mobile side is closely tied to the server side,” Kurzke said. In that scenario, Eclipse makes sense for helping developers handle both portions of the application “because people developing the server side components are already familiar with it, he said.