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WIRELESS PRIMER MOBILE DEVELOPER WEB RESOURCES www.allnetdevices.com/developer/ www.anywhereyougo.com/ http://javamobile.org/ www.idendev.com/ http://mix.motorola.com/ www.symbiandevnet.com/ http://java.sun.com/products/j2mewtoolkit www.palmos.com/developers/ http://developers.rim.net/ www.nttdocomo.com/i/java/index.html 8 Mobile developer resource links thin client-side applications to communicate with an external application server. Communication techniques include using raw TCP or UDP datagram transports, or, in some instances an HTTP session, to transfer data to and from an application server. The J2ME, Palm, and Windows CE programming models all support TCP and UDP as well as higher-level HTTP sessions over TCP/IP. If the particular mobile device platform supports HTTP or SMTP, this opens the door to possibly employing application-level transport such as SOAP. Unfortunately, many of these network technologies are designed to operate over tethered Internet connections where continuous, highspeed, reliable data links are generally assumed, and therefore have not been adapted to the specific characteristics often experienced over wireless data connections such as on-again, off-again link connections based on the distance from the local wireless base station. The lack of application-level transports geared toward wireless connections is a reflection of a much larger void that currently exists. At this time, there are no common application programming interfaces geared toward wireless connectivity that have been developed, standardized, and adopted across major platforms such as EPOC, J2ME, Palm, RIM, and Windows CE. As a result, software developers find themselves having to build applications for smart phones and PDAs using vendorspecific SDKs and APIs, many of which have been more closely optimized to work with the unique characteristics of a particular wireless technology type or mobile device platform. Vendor-specific SDKs will typically support a particular carrier’s air interface for which that mobile device is commonly deployed on, as will be the case with RIM’s Java SDK support of GPRS when it becomes available this fall. J2ME, with platforms for Palm, RIM, and Windows CE, might be the best hope for standardization of an API for wireless network access across various mobile platforms. However, this will probably not occur until the newer 2.5G and 3G technologies have been deployed and are operating, which will pave the way for rapid growth in the field of mobile platform software technologies. MOBILE SERVER PLATFORM OFFERING COMPANY WEB LINK iConverse Mobility Platform iConverse www.iconverse.com MobileShift Platform & IDE MShift www.mshift.com AIRIX Wireless Platform Nextair www.nextair.com ThinAir Server & SDK ThinAirApps www.thinairapps.com 4thpass Mobile Application System 4thpass www.4thpass.com Mobile Application Software Suite Ellipsus Systems www.ellipsus.com Everypath Mobile Application Platform Everypath www.everypath. digitalenterprises.com Air2Web Mobile Internet Platform Air2Web www.air2web.com Internet Rapid Adaptive Mobile Platform mobileID www.mobileid.com Vaultus Delivery Platform Mobile Logic www.mobilelogic.com Covigo Mobile Application Platform Covigo www.covigo.com 2Roam Platform & Toolset 2Roam www.2roam.com Aether Intelligent Messaging Aether Technologies www.aether.com Oracle9i Application Server Wireless Edition Oracle www.oracle.com AirBoss Application Platform Geoworks www.geoworks.com ColdFusion 5 Allaire www.coldfusion.com GateWave 2.2 PassCall www.passcall.com Zy-MobileServer Zyglobe www.zyglobe.com WebSphere Translation/Transcoder Products IBM www.ibm.com/websphere Infinite Mobile Delivery Server Infinite www.infinite.com AirDoc Enterprise Server Arizan www.arizan.com Mobile Information Server Microsoft www.microsoft.com/miserver NarrowCast Server MicroStrategy www.microstrategy.com Continuum Engine Curious Networks www.curiousnetworks.com AvantGo Mobile Solution AvantGo www.avantgo.com 9 Mobile application platform product offerings 34 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
5. Enterprise Integration 5 The level of integration into the enterprise IS architecture will be determined by which corporate information systems and resources will be linked to a wireless front end or channel. Email, calendaring, employee data, expense reporting, corporate directory services, databases, and application servers are all candidates for mobile access. Which type of mobile application is used to implement wireless access, whether it’s voice-based, message-based, wireless Web, thin client/server, or small-footprint RDBMS, will quickly define the enterprise application architecture required for implementation. One of the most important factors to consider when choosing a mobile application platform is the number of data sources (HTTP or HTML, XML, database, etc.) that it supports out-of-the-box. Other critical points to consider include how much legacy information will need to be accessed by the mobile user, and what format this information is in. As noted earlier in this article, a number of vendors including Covigo, iConverse, and Mobile ID (see Table 7) have mobile application products to perform conversion of HTMLbased material and make it suitable for display on wireless devices. Features commonly found in mobile application platforms include subsystem components to generate mobile device markup such as cHTML, HDML, MML, Palm PQA, and WML; component services for WAP push; subsystem interface support to existing database systems or XML sources; interfaces to mail servers such as Microsoft Exchange Server or Lotus Domino Server; HTML translation services to repurpose existing content for display on mobile devices; VoiceXML browsing and voice-synthesis services; wireless messaging support such as SMS; and in some cases, Java 2 Mobile Edition (J2ME) application provisioning. Other features in a mobile application platform that can prove to be important include tools for mobile software distribution and mobile device network management functions, such as those found in the 4thpass Mobile Application System (MAS). The type of enterprise information sources that are going to be made available to the mobile user, the type of mobile applications that will be distributed to the mobile user base, and the selection of mobile system platforms and associated wireless technologies are all key factors to consider when attempting to formulate a wireless solution that will work within an existing enterprise. However, there are many others that are beyond the scope of this article including security (LDAP, SSL, WTLS, etc.), administrating the wireless channel/access, and field trial testing, just to name a few. Conclusion Planning and then deploying a solution to provide wireless access of mission-critical applications or data to mobile users is challenging. The process of researching and developing an architecture that will fit into an existing enterprise can be made easier if the project plan is guided initially by the following: • The mobile device platform and the business applications to be deployed on or accessed over the device • The coverage area required by the user base – office, campus, national, international • The upgrade path of possible carriers to GPRS, CDMA2000, or UMTS if a local wireless technology is not to be used • The mobile application technology type – voice, messaging, wireless Web, thin client/server, or small footprint DBMS • Integration into the enterprise – data sources, legacy content, mobile application platform features Other factors to consider include implementing security over wireless connections and field-testing of mobile applications. Both topics will be discussed in a follow-up article to appear in a subsequent issue. S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1 www.WBT2.com 35 WIRELESS PRIMER
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