In the past couple of months the activity on the Java and Symbian OS forums has increased significantly. We at Sony Ericsson want to thank everyone participating in the forums. We want these forums to be an excellent source of information and assistance. That is best achieved when EVERYONE helps each other. The sum of the knowledge of the forum members is far greater than that of any individual, even the fine folks on our own Developer Support staff.

To encourage a continuing willingness to help and share information, Sony Ericsson wants to recognize one person in each forum for regularly and repeatedly adding to the quality of the forums.

In the Java forum, "DANM" has been active for the past couple of months in many topics. He has provided details on Internet profile setup for a carrier to another member, and the other person's response was: "Mate, you are a legend." He helped a new developer by providing information on the Eclipse development environment, as well as added insight and contributions to a long thread on firmware inconsistencies that morphed into a discussion of memory and Java performance. And he provided helpful debug trace information, possible solutions, and workarounds on a long thread about a recurring "application uses too much memory" issue on the T610.

In the Symbian OS forum, "DCHIARAMELLO" has helped in a similar way. Like "DANM" he asks questions in the forum in hopes of getting answers. But he shares the knowledge he already has with those learning what he already knows. He helped another forum member with HTTP example code, provided helpful information on flags in pkg files, and contributed good ideas to a discussion of how to uninstall an in-use application on the P800. He also provided a long and detailed code example for how to handle text input dialogs.

We at Sony Ericsson feel that this demonstration of community spirit and willingness to share knowledge and help others should be recognized and rewarded. So, we have given both "DANM" and "DCHIARAMELLO" a free one-year Core membership.

In doing so, we hope to accomplish a couple of things. First and most importantly, we want to publicly thank and help loyal developers. So, THANKS! We also hope to encourage everyone else to help each other. Sony Ericsson wants these forums to be the premiere place to learn about programming for Sony Ericsson phones. By occasionally (and irregularly) identifying and rewarding outstanding contributions, we hope to foster a community spirit and an atmosphere where we all help each other.

Upon acceptance of the new membership, "DANM" said: "I think that what goes around comes around, and we always need help with some development issue. I believe that the most difficult element to MIDP development at the moment lies in the quirks and differences between various devices. Unfortunately many people view their workarounds and efforts as part of their commercial advantage over other Java developers and are reluctant to share their experiences out of fear of losing their competitive edge. If we instead treated the issues as general restrictions to the acceptance and uptake of MIDP and helped each other as best and openly as we can, we'd all benefit, both development-wise and comercially. I appreciate your initiative of rewarding developers who are willing to help others for the benefit of broader Java deployment."

"DCHIARAMELLO" expressed the following sentiments as a response to the forum recognition: "When I started working on Symbian something like 6 months ago, I found it hard to find information. But some people were more helpful than others, and greatly helped me when I needed it the most. I swore then that if I were able to provide the same help to others one day, I would do it, in respect for the time they consumed in helping me. When I saw your first forum reward a few months ago, I was very pleased by that initiative - not thinking a single second that I may be destined for it one day, but because I myself had suffered from lack of support, and each step done for a better one should be welcome. Keep doing your support job, and I'll be happy!"

Thank you, "DANM" and "DCHIARAMELLO", for your valuable contributions, and here's to a continually improving support community at Sony Ericsson Developer World!