I'm very curious about this tsumobi thing, as it's basically exactly what Hecl is ( http://www.hecl.org ). I'd sort of abbandoned it as an idea for making any money with directly, though, figuring the advantage was just to be able to develop applications a lot faster. I was able to prototype ShopList ( http://shoplist.dedasys.com ) in a few minutes with it, for example.
Edit: BTW, I'd certainly be interested in chatting with the Tsumobi folks. It's a good idea - perhaps there are elements in common that can be reused from/added to Hecl, which is open source under a very liberal license, meaning you can take it and include it even in 'commercial' apps.
I really think that the 'common' bits in a space like that have to be either free or open source (think about browsers, html, javascript, java applets, etc...), and that that's not where the money is.
It sounds a lot like the idea I was going to apply to YC with, bugger.
If you want fast prototyping for mobile I'd recommend using python on a nokia S60. Theres pretty much a full hardware api allowing you to access the camera, phone book, etc.
True, getting stuff running on 'dumb' phones like the razr is crucial. Wonder if python could run on top of javame? I would anticipate it be very slow.
There was once upon a time a bit of rumbling about getting Jython going on javame. I don't think anything ever came of it, and if standard Jython is any indication, it would have been, as you said, /very/ slow.
You really have to start with a *small* core language, or you will end up with something on your phone that's "sort of" Python/Tcl/Ruby/whatever. Hecl isn't a speed demon on a slow phone, but it is still usable.
Edit: BTW, I'd certainly be interested in chatting with the Tsumobi folks. It's a good idea - perhaps there are elements in common that can be reused from/added to Hecl, which is open source under a very liberal license, meaning you can take it and include it even in 'commercial' apps.
I really think that the 'common' bits in a space like that have to be either free or open source (think about browsers, html, javascript, java applets, etc...), and that that's not where the money is.