Hitachi-Sponsored Competition to Drive Innovation in Converged Applications Development

Hitachi (News - Alert) Communication Technologies America (HCTA) announced it is sponsoring the 2010-2011 Convergence Innovation Competition (CIC) produced by the Georgia Tech Research Network Operations Center (GT-RNOC).

The CIC, which aims to spur innovation in converged applications development for communications service providers (CSPs) is currently underway. At the end of the competition, awards will be given to student teams based on concept viability, creativity, and completeness of the submitted prototype.

For CIC, Hitachi is providing funding support, along with the company’s SuperJ Applications Environment software platform, server components, training and technical support.

SuperJ Engine (SJE) is a highly performance optimized embedded Java Virtual Machine. SuperJ Framework (SJF) is OSGi standards-compliant client software for all Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) SuperJ Deployment Management System (SJDMS) is the applications deployment server. SuperJ Tools (SJT) is the development kit and tools for application developers.

“Hitachi is proud to sponsor the Convergence (News - Alert) Innovation Competition this year. The topic of applications delivered over communications networks is very timely, as service providers today continue to seek ways to generate revenue from their broadband wireline and wireless networks,” said David Foote (News - Alert), HCTA chief technology officer, in a statement. “It is rewarding to see the creativity and organized thought process that the students apply to these projects.”

Additionally, the competition has drawn support from other companies that have products and initiatives in this area. Actiontec, a major supplier of home/business gateway devices to large service providers, contributed CPE – broadband home routers and plug computer-based service gateways – for use in the competition.

These Actiontec home routers and service gateways and plug computers used by the students run Hitachi’s SJE and SJF in order to “host” the applications that will be developed (using the SJT) by the competing student teams.

The deployment and life cycle management of the applications will be accomplished by GT-RNOC researchers and student assistants using the SJDMS, company officials said.

“Working on these projects with Hitachi is very beneficial to our students,” said Russ Clark, PhD, associate director of GT-RNOC and research scientist in Georgia Tech’s College of Computing, in a statement.

Earlier this year, HCTA announced company's SuperJ Applications Environment served as the unified applications deployment platform for the Verizon Wireless (News - Alert) 4G LTE Mobile Broadband network for multiple demonstrations of commercial-ready services being demonstrated in the Verizon Wireless booth at the 2011 CES (News - Alert) show.



Rajani Baburajan is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Rajani's articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Jennifer Russell