If you have found these pages, you are probably aware that the Cisco
wireless phones, the 7921G and 7925G have become very popular in
certain industry segments, especially health care and retail. The
7925G has spawned off two variants, the 7925G-EX designed for
environments need ATEX and CSA certification, and the 7926G which
is the bar code scanner phone.
 
The idea of adding a bar code scanner to a wireless phone has been
kicking around for a few years, but as we started to explore this path,
we realized that an application environment was needed. This  triggered
the discussions to port a JVM  and Java MIDP support to the wireless
phones.
 
In 2008 Cisco implemented MIDP support in the desk top phones,
initially with the intention of supporting MIDlets and allowing developers
to write more dynamic applications for the desk phones. But as we
went down that path we realized that we had added so many features to
the desk phones, there was insufficient memory to support 3rd party
MIDlets safely. Since phone services are the primary function of the
phones, we decided to restrict the MIDP access to the desk phones.
 
However, the 792x series of wireless phones do not have the same
constraints and it was felt quite viable to offer MIDP support in these
phones to developers. But we needed a program to make this support
a reality. The bar code scanner phone was the vehicle to do this. The
bar code scanner needs a client app to integrate between the bar code
data and a back end information system. XSI would be too slow for this
kind of integration, Java MIDP would be ideal, and thus we embarked on the
program.