So deCarta has a new product called deCarta Mobile. Everyone has their own mobile development platform, so why not offer your own? I’m sure they have some developers lined up to showcase their Java LBS platform so there will probably be some interesting apps coming forward. I can understand that deCarta brings much expertise to the LBS arena, but I’m just not sure that will matter much given the huge developer bases for Android and the iPhone (I await Glenn’s comment below about Nokia mattering).

In the end I suspect this is a niche platform for users who need a very specific application and not meant for consumer applications (not saying that it isn’t possible, just there are other SDKs that developers might choose before this one). deCarta did a good job of explaining why they think they are important in the hosted service world in the comments of this post on the Virtual Earth /Live Maps Blog. Ignore all the porn links and go to the last comment (note to Microsoft, Live Spaces is a horrible blogging platform and using it just proves to everyone what a poorly thought out concept “Live” is).

The deCarta model might be just what some companies are looking for (being able to pick and chose providers or hosting your own data) and I suppose we’ll see how if deCarta Mobile takes off. For me Java is irrelevant on the mobile platform (iPhone) and on my desktop (I think only my Oracle management tools are Java) so I’m definitely not its market.