A methodology for building mobile computing applications
Minder Chen
School of Management
George Mason University
MSN-5F4, 4400 University Drive
Fairfax, VA 22030, USA
Phone: 703-993-1788 E-mail: mchen@gmu.edu
Abstract: There is a tremendous amount of interest in developing mobile
enterprise computing applications, driven by recent advancements in mobile
technologies and standards, as well as an increasing mobile workforce population.
However, many enterprises are uncertain of the various options they may have
due to the emerging nature of mobile computing technologies. Additionally, they
are concerned about the integration of mobile technologies with existing IT
infrastructure and applications. In this paper, we propose a methodology to help
enterprises develop business strategies and architectures for mobile computing. A
generic mobile technical infrastructure is presented to assist enterprises in
evaluating and implementing mobile applications. Software standards that may
have major impacts on mobile technical architectures and application
development are discussed.
Finally, the implications of the proposed
methodology for mobile computing for practitioners and researchers are discussed
in the conclusion.
Keywords: Mobile computing; web services; mobile technical architecture;
business strategies, standards.
Biographical note: Minder Chen received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from
National Taiwan University in 1977, an M.B.A. from National Chiao Tung
University in 1983, and a Ph.D. in MIS from the University of Arizona in 1988.
He is an Associate Professor of MIS and Decision Science in the School of
Management at George Mason University. His primary research interests include
Web services, electronic commerce, mobile computing, knowledge management,
business process reengineering, computer-aided software engineering, and GDSS.
He has published papers in Journal of Management Information Systems,
Database, Journal of Organizational Computing, Expert Systems with
Applications, IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, Journal
of Small Group Research, Journal of Computer Information Systems,
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, IEEE Software, and IEEE
Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics.
1
1
Emerging trends of mobile computing
The twenty-first century workforce is becoming increasingly mobile. A recent
IDC study predicted the number of mobile workers in the U.S. will rise from 92 million
in 2001 to 105 million in 2006 while the non-mobile workforce will decline by 2 million
to 53.8 million by 2006 [27, 42].
Therefore, two-thirds of U.S. employees will be
mobile workers by 2006. Mobile workers are defined in this study as workers who spend
more than 20% of their time away from theirs desks attending meetings, traveling, or
telecommuting from home.
Some players in the mobile computing market focus on consumer oriented
contents and service, such as ring-tones, MP3 music, and MMS [41].
However,
according to studies from IT research firms, 40% of companies will use wireless
technology for business applications by 2003, up from just 5% in 1999 [44]. According
to this trend, more than 50% of companies have or will have wireless connectivity to
corporate systems by 2005. The aggressive deployment of mobile computing is in part
driven by recent advancements in mobile computing technologies and high payback for
effective application of mobile technologies. Some studies show that the productivity of
mobile workers may be improved by 30% when proper mobile technologies are deployed
[10].
The abundance of emerging mobile technologies and standards as well as
expanding opportunities to capitalize on them has created a lot of confusion among
business managers and IT architects.
We have developed a methodology to help
organizations plan and build enterprise-wide mobile computing applications.
2
The
methodology proposed in this paper is an attempt to provide a comprehensive strategic
framework to identify business opportunities for mobile business and commerce, as well
as a roadmap and action plans to develop and deploy mobile applications.
This
methodology is intended to help firms to realize the potential benefits of mobile
technologies more easily. Section 2 of this paper presents the life-cycle phases of the
methodology. Section 3 discusses how to analyze the mobility of business processes.
Section 4 is a detailed discussion of the development of a mobile computing architecture
and emerging mobile technologies.
Section 5 presents several important software
standards that are important to mobile architectures and application development. This
paper is concluded with a discussion of how this proposed methodology may be
improved and validated, as well as a call for further research to advance our
understanding of the development and deployment of mobile computing in enterprises.
2
A methodology for building mobile computing applications
The enterprise-wide mobile computing is the use of mobile devices, wireless
networks and Internet connections to access enterprise data and applications. The lack of
methodologies to help organizations in their mobile computing initiatives may have
hindered the deployment of enterprise-wide mobile applications.
Based on the
literature regarding systems development, business process reengineering methodologies
[3, 4], information systems planning methods [20, 36], and mobile computing [11, 13], a
methodology for building enterprise-wide mobile computing applications was developed.
The proposed methodology shown in Figure 1 is depicted in IDEF0 diagramming
notation [18].
In IDEF0, a process is represented as a rectangular box and its
relationships to inputs, controls, outputs, and mechanism (ICOMs) can be interpreted as:
3
Business priority
Current business
processes & applications
Business
mobilization
strategies
Business
objectives &
strategies
I1
Analyze the
Mobility of
Business
Processes
Design constraints
3
Funtional mobile
applications
Develop
EnterpriseWide Mobile
Strategies
1
Mobile processes &
mobile applications
Selected
mobile
projects
IT budget
Mobile
technology
trends
Technology
strategy &
requirements
Existing
information
systems
architecture
Mobile Analysis
Team
Develop an
EnterpriseWide Mobile
Technical
Architecture
Depoyed mobile
Deploy
applications
Mobile
Applications
Build
Mobile
Application
Mobile
computing
architecture
O1
5
4
Development
tools
Deployment
platforms
2
Mobile
Architect
Team
Mobile
Development
Team
Mobile
Deployment
Team
Mobile Strategy
Team
Entrprise Mobilization Teams
Figure 1
A Methodology for Building Enterprise-Wide Mobile Applications
"Inputs are transformed by the process into outputs according to controls, using
mechanisms." The boxes in Figure 1 represent five phases of the life cycle for building
enterprise-wide mobile computing applications. The arrows coming in contact with the
box from the left are the inputs to a life cycle phase; arrows coming out from the right
ride of a box are outputs (i.e., deliverables); controls are shown as arrows coming in
contact with the top side of a box representing constraints and guidelines governing the
conduct of a phase. Mechanisms are arrows coming in contact with the bottom of a box
representing systems, organizations, or individuals that perform activities in a life-cycle
phase.
4
The methodology should be treated as a suggestion and a general guideline.
Companies can plan and develop mobile applications by conducting activities in various
phases in the life cycle iteratively and concurrently to allow quick prototyping and
feedbacks.
The five major phases for building mobile computing applications are
described as follows:
1. Develop enterprise-wide mobile strategies: Companies engage in mobile computing
initiatives because they want to take advantage of emerging mobile computing
technologies as well as supporting an increasingly mobilized workforce to gain
competitive advantages in the marketplace and to better serve their customers. A
mobile strategy team should consist of top level management (e.g., chief executive
officer, chief information officer, chief technology officer, and business-line
managers).
The process of creating enterprise-wide mobile strategies should be
based on existing business strategies and objectives, as well as high-level
understanding of mobile technology's trends and impacts. Details of this phase are
further discussed in Section 3.
2. Analyze the mobility of business processes.
Until recently, enterprise
communication and computing support was limited to desktop computing tools that
glue employees to their desks. Mobile technologies enable organizations to redesign
their business processes such that their sale forces and field services representatives
can perform critical activities at customer sites. In this phase, the mobile analysis
team will develop business process maps and identify promising mobile projects that
may bring in more revenues and result in better customer service.
Section 4
elaborates the activities involved and approaches in analyzing process mobility.
3. Develop an enterprise-wide mobile technical architecture.
A comprehensive
mobile technical architecture will be developed in this phase based on mobile
business strategies, mobility analysis of business process map, as well as mobile
application portfolios developed in the previous two phases.
The technical
architecture will allow companies to invest wisely in mobile technologies based on
current IT infrastructure and mobile standards so that the development and
5
deployment costs for mobile applications may be reduced.
Section 5 explains
important components of a mobile technical architecture. The roles of standards that
are important for the development of a mobile technical architecture are discussed in
Section 6.
4. Build mobile applications. The most obvious constraints in building applications for
mobile devices are smaller screen sizes, less efficient data entry methods, and limited
local CPU power. Keyboards and mice are normally not available for small mobile
devices. Developers may need to learn new development tools and observe these
constraints in building mobile applications [19]. The first step in mobile application
design to reduce user input requirements by providing point and click interfaces as
well as delivering only the most critical contents to mobile users. A step further is to
take advantage of special features in mobile devices such as Soft-Key, telephone
dialing, and voice capabilities of cell phones. An example of a design method for the
building of mobile applications has been proposed by Beaulieu [2].
5. Deploy mobile applications.
Proper user training and support are required in the
deployment phase. Change management strategies should be applied along with
mobile application deployment to ensure effective behavioral changes of people who
are involved in these mobilized processes. Performance measures of the mobile
business processes and workforce should be implemented to provide justification for
the investment in mobile computing and to receive feedback for improving mobile
enabled business processes continuously.
The first three phases in this methodology are important for enterprise-wide mobile
computing effort in the methodology. The last two phases are more project-specific. In
this paper, we focus on the enterprise-wide aspect of mobile computing and will discuss
the only first three phases in detail.
3
Develop enterprise-wide mobile computing strategies
6
Mobile computing allows the right information to be available to the right person
to perform critical business processes wherever and whenever. The mobile strategy team
should extend e-business and e-commerce business models to identify strategic areas
where mobile computing applications may have the highest payback opportunities.
From a business perspective, companies need to focus on supporting their employees,
customers, and trading partners involved in their core business processes. These strategic
areas include:
1. Business to employee (B2E): B2E applications can be classified into two
categories:
a. Horizontal mobile applications are professional productivity tools, often
been referred to as Personal Information Management (PIM), including
email, instant message, calendar, and Internet access. Email is probably
one of the most important mobile horizontal applications. Some
researchers believed that email is "a proxy for a business process" [45].
It is often used in the context of information workflows related to
enterprise business applications.
b. Vertical mobile applications directly support core business processes by
providing mobile access to enterprise applications such as sale force
automation, field worker automation, inventory control, warehouse
management, and logistics.
2. Business to consumers (B2C): B2C mobile applications are often referred to as
mobile commerce (m-commerce). M-commerce is an extension of e-commerce.
Mobile applications in B2C that are unique and promising in the m-commerce
space include [15]:
a. Wireless data delivery service is a critical element of mobile commerce.
Popular services are weather and sports reports, traffic conditions,
financial news, stock portfolio tracking, stock quotes, and telephone
directory assistance.
7
b. M-commerce transactions often require immediate actions for people on
the run. For example, typical m-commerce transactions include buying
tickets, purchasing goods from vending machines via wireless devices,
and trading stocks.
c. M-commerce marketing functions may alert users of shops and special
sales based on their locations.
Businesses should be aware of difficulties facing m-ecommerce in this
planning stage [31, 41]. M-commerce applications should be designed so that less
steps and data entry efforts are required to go through a transaction. Planners
should be briefed on emerging mobile technologies trends and understand their
implications to their businesses. For example, using location-based services to
advertise sales to customers at the proximity of your stores is a unique and
innovative mobile application.
Innovation in B2C mobile applications can be
found in some vertical industries such as health industry and retail industry [5, 29].
3. Business to business (B2B): Few mobile and wireless B2B applications have
been developed. Building mobile web sites for B2B exchanges such that mobile
devices can submit bids and receive alerts of new bids seems to be a promising
application in this area [30].
In general, M-commerce tends to be more successful in Japan and Europe but is
very slow to catch on in the United States [8]. The driving force for the deployment of
mobile and wireless devices in the United State will be enterprise-wide mobile
applications.
A new vision of a mobile enterprise should emerge from this phase to guide the
formulation of mobile strategies and goals.
8
The mobile strategy team needs to
communicate this vision and a business case for action to all stakeholders to ensure an
organizational commitment to mobile computing. The team should also evaluate the
issues involved in introducing mobile applications from technical, organizational, and
cultural perspectives to plan the implementation of mobile computing initiative
accordingly.
The next phase after mobile strategies have been developed is to have a
more in-depth analysis of the mobility of core business and applications as discussed in
the next session.
4
Analyze the mobility of business processes
The challenge of mobile computing strategies and implementation is to identify
and select opportunities for deployment that will provide the most payback. Based on the
general mobile strategies developed in the first phase, the mobile analysis team needs to
develop a business process model in order to identify business activities in which
increasing the mobility of these activities can improve business performance and gain
competitive advantages [11]. Using a value chain model to guide the development of the
process map is a good starting point in this phase [14].
The analysis team should educate the business managers involved in this analysis
phase about the capability of mobile computing technologies and challenge their current
business practices and procedures constantly. The mobility analysis team needs to create
a process map of core business processes first. Based on the process map, the team can
identify activities in these processes in which remote access to data and applications may
improve these processes.
The facilitator could asks the analysis team members the
following triggering questions to help them analyze the process model:
9

What is the mobility of employees who are in involved in this process?

What are the major activities of the process?

Where are these activities performed currently?

What information and applications are required while performing these
activities?

Can employees perform some activities while working onsite with
customers?
Several heuristics developed in business reengineering have been adapted to
determine how to increase the mobility of an enterprise [4].

Bring mobility to office-bound activities.
Enabling mobile access to
information allows corporations move office tasks into the field where their
customers are. Mobile access to information (such as service records and
product pricing) will empower employees in the customer-facing processes to
make more informed decisions to serve customers better. Information
generated while away from offices can be captured at the place where events
occur.

Extend mobile access to customers and trading partner. The processes in the
process map should be an extended e-process map that contains links to
customers and trading partners. By extending business processes such that
mobile customers can access data relevant to cross-organizational business
processes, an enterprise is forging a stronger tie to their customers.

Create new and innovative mobile applications. New applications, such as
mobile web sites, downloadable offline data sets and applications, locationbased services, and mobile commerce, are new areas that an enterprise should
exploit to extend their reach to employees, customers, and trading partners.
New or reengineered business processes and applications should be designed to
embrace these new services.

Extend current enterprise-wide applications. Mobile computing offers a new
channel for communication and data access to improve operational efficiency
and increase added value to customers [13]. Enhancing current client-server
based enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management
(CRM), and supply chain management (SCM) enterprise-wide application
packages with mobile technologies is a natural logical step forward towards
operational efficiency [33].
At the end of this phase, the mobile analysis team needs to evaluate and prioritize
mobile projects or applications to be implemented by considering two major factors. The
10
first factor is the impacts and the benefits of these mobile projects. The second factor is
the difficult in implementing these mobile projects.
A more detailed cost-benefit
analysis may be required to select appropriate projects for implementation. Ideally, one
should select projects that have a high impact but are easy to implement. Mobile projects
that have the following characteristics should be given high priority:
1. Projects that target broken business processes. These broken processes are caused by
the lack of mobile access to data or by the complicated data synchronization
procedures involved between mobile devices and back-office systems.
2. Projects that deal with customer-facing processes. These processes have high addedvalue and involve front-line workers including sale force automation, field worker
automation, and mobile CRM.
3. Projects that involve time-sensitive processes. The cycle-time of these business
processes can be reduced by capturing data in computer readable format at the point
of creation. Hence, companies can eliminate duplicated data entry from different
applications.
4. Projects which are easy to implement. The development team should choose some
quick and effective mobile projects at the beginning of the mobile initiative to secure
continuous support from top management and ensure buy-ins from stakeholders.
The analysis team should involve functional area managers, mobile workforce,
and trading partners to brainstorm new ideas and learn to challenge basic assumptions of
why certain activities in processes need to be done in the office. Creative applications of
mobile technologies are often coupled with the conceptual breakthroughs of business
practices. New processes and applications may be developed to create more added-value
for the mobile enterprise.
5
Develop a mobile computing technical architecture
11
Gartner, an IT research firm, predicted that "more than 50 percent of mobile
applications deployed at the start of 2002 will be obsolete by the end of 2002 [23]."
Many applications get outdated quickly due to the complexity of the various mobile
technologies involved. The best practice in managing these constantly evolving and
competing technologies is to define and develop a standard-based mobile computing
technical architecture.
A sound mobile technical architecture is an extension and
enhancement of existing IT infrastructure components to facilitate the integration
between mobile applications and existing IT applications. A comprehensive mobile
architecture can also enhance efficiency in developing and deploying new mobile
applications [13].
We have developed a generic mobile computing architecture, depicted in Figure 2,
based on recommendations from IT vendors and researchers [3, 9, 11, 28, 45]. Standards
that are critical for defining an enterprise-wide mobile computing architecture are
addressed in Section 6.
12
Figure 2
5.1
A Mobile Computing Technical Architecture
Mobile clients
Mobile clients consist of mobile devices, mobile operating systems (OS), and
client-side mobile application software. Mobile devices include cell phones and low-end
PDAs that have Web access, as well as high-end PDAs and notebook computers that
have wireless network connections. There are many mobile operating systems for PDAs
(e.g., Pilot Research's Palm OS and Microsoft's Pocket PC). Additional programming
frameworks (i.e., virtual machines) such as J2ME and .NET Compact Framework,
specifically designed to run on mobile devices, may be required to deploy some offline
applications. For consumer oriented cell phones, Symbian OS is a popular mobile OS for
phone-based devices supporting 2.5G and 3G networks and Multimedia Message Service
13
(MMS) [35].
All mobile devices are expected to have a wireless Internet connection,
Web browsing capability, and some degree of local process capability.
Horizontal mobile applications include personal information management (PIM),
messaging services such as email, short message services, and multimedia message
services [17].
Vertical mobile enterprise applications can be custom-built or are
extensions of ERP, CRM, and SCM packages for mobile workforce.
Enterprise
applications are the main driver of mobile computing growth in the United States. Highend PDAs and notebook computers have better input mechanisms, large screen size, and
more local processing power; therefore, they are better positioned to support online
mobile enterprise applications that require both online and disconnected offline
processing.
A comparison of mobile Web clients and Mobile rich clients is listed in
Table 1.
5.2
Wireless networks
Wireless deployments have been accelerated more recently, including a rush to
serve data over cellular networks (2.5G-3G) and wireless LAN (Wi-Fi). In the near
future, applications can expect always-on connectivity from anywhere.
IDC estimates
that 85 million notebook PCs will be sold in 2005. Most of them are expected to contain
Wi-Fi. There are three types of wireless networks that compliment each other to serve
different needs.
Table 1
A Comparison of Mobile Web Clients and Mobile Rich Clients
14
Features
Devices
Operating System
Mobile Web Clients
Smart-phone, Cellular phone,
PDA
Symbian, Palm OS
Online/Offline
Online only
User interface
Web browser interface rendering
markup web pages encoded in
WML, cHTML, XHTML, etc.
Smaller
Stylus and virtual keyboard
Screen size
Input
Locations of
business Logic and
data
Reside on the server side
Client-side
installation and
configuration
No
Mobile Rich Clients
PDA, Notebook
Pocket PC, Palm OS; Programming
frameworks: J2ME and .NET Compact
Framework
Online or offline
High end offline applications may require
the installation of J2ME or .NET compact
Framework.
More flexible user interface
Web browsers rendering HTML web pages
Larger
Keyboard and mouse
Offline applications: Reside on the client
side
Online applications: reside on the serverside
Yes
1. Personal Area Networks (PANs) are short-range to link an individual user's
computing and communication devices, such as PDA, notebook, cell phone, and
printer.
The primary technologies are infrared (IrDA) and Bluetooth [16].
It is
touted as cable-less technology that enables data synchronization, peer-to-peer ad hoc
file exchanges, and printing without using cables to connect these devices [12].
Earlier efforts to implement Bluetooth encountered adoption barriers including
security and compatibility issues.
2. Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) may become a major driver for wireless
networking of mobile devices. The dominant standard for WLAN is IEEE 802.11b,
also referred to as Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity) supports a data rate of 12 Mbps.
The
data transmission rate is a little better than the 10 Mbps data rate of 10-BaseT
Ethernet, but less than 100-BaseT Fast Ethernet's 100 Mbps.
For most enterprise
applications, the speed is appropriate. For example, "the paradigm shift to notebook
computers as the default platform" was completed at Intel by the end of 2002 [10].
There are increasingly more hotspots in public places, hotel, conference rooms that
15
are equipped with base stations to support wireless LAN connections that provide
access to the Internet.
3. Wireless Wide Area Networks (WWANs) are provided mostly by wireless network
carriers. There are several generations of technologies and standards available in the
marketplace.
The first generation of cellular wireless (1G) was based on analog
technology designed to carry voice.
The second-generation (2G) technology
converts voice to digital data for transmission over the air and then back to voice.
Most
2G
systems
provide
9.6–14.4-Kbps
circuit-switched
data
service.
2.5G refers to technology that is added to a 2G network to provide packet-switching
data service. In practice, 2.5G is synonymous with the GPRS technology that has
been added to GSM networks.
The third-generation (3G) systems have been
designed for both voice and data. By International Telecommunications Union's
definition, 3G systems must provide a packet-switching data service from 144-Kbps
to 2Mbps. The availability of 3G WWAN is slower than expected.
Wireless
gateways are required to connect the wireless carrier's networks to the Internet in
order to support Internet-based applications.
The build up of wireless LANs is not only occurring inside corporate campuses,
but also at publicly accessible hotspots such hotels, airports, college campuses, and
conference centers. People can logon to these public WLANs to access the Internet. For
example, Starbucks started to offer T-Mobile Hotspot's Wi-Fi service at 1200 locations
on August 21, 2002 [1, 21].
The usage of wireless LANs in public places are
encroaching on the domain of 3G network [45].
5.3
Data synchronization
Data synchronization servers are necessary when client mobile devices such as
PDAs and notebooks are capable of handling data offline.
Mobile devices using
software such as Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes often need to have access to
"personal information" including address book, to-do lists, e-mail, and a calendar.
16
Business data that need to be stored offline on mobile device such as customer
orders and product data may require the use of mobile versions of database management
systems, such as SyBase SQL Anywhere, Microsoft SQL Server CE, Oracle Lite, etc.
Mobile database software packages have a much smaller memory footprint. For example,
SQL Server CE delivers its functionality in approximately one megabyte [26]. A
synchronization server may be needed to handle the data synchronization between the
mobile databases and centralized database servers.
Data synchronization services
simplify data exchange between mobile devices and back-office systems.
New database programming models have also emerged to support offline and
disconnected data management and batched database updates. For example, ADO.NET
in the .NET Framework allows programmers retrieve data from database servers or XML
data sources into datasets (i.e., in-memory databases). Data that needs to be accessed by
disconnected mobile devices can be stored offline as XML files or in mobile databases.
Changes made to data locally can be sent to the server based on an optimistic
concurrency control mechanism when the mobile devices are connected to the network.
5.4
Mobile application servers
Mobile application servers provide a broad range of functions, sometimes under
different product labels. Major functions in a typical mobile application server include:
content adaptation, notification, and security.
1. Content Adaptation or Transcoding Services. Various markup languages are used
by different mobile devices. Building contents in formats specific for each mobile
device is very costly and impractical.
There are server-based solutions that
dynamically translate Web contents and applications into multiple markup languages
and optimize them for delivery to mobile devices. IBM's WebSphere Transcoding
17
Publisher [7] and Oracle 9i Wireless are examples of such products. Microsoft takes
a different approach by providing a programming tool, Mobile Information Toolkit,
to support the development of mobile Web applications in one code base. Contents
can be generated dynamically in various formats for more than one hundred devices.
2. Notification services. In an increasingly mobile environment, people want access to
the information they need regardless of where they are. Notification services can
provide data subscription and delivery mechanisms.
Applications that use
notification services can provide their customers and employees with the information
they need when they need it to empower them to make timely and informed decisions
[6, 26]. The user is required to subscribe to the service by specifying triggering
events when the notification should be generated and sent to the user.
Delivery
preferences can be specified in advanced. Notifications are sent to users' mobile
devices as SMS or to their e-mail accounts. Notification service is an essential
component of the mobile infrastructure and is a unique feature in some innovative
mobile applications.
3. Security. Securing information from unauthorized access is a major problem for any
network – wire-line or wireless. In a mobile enterprise, anytime and anywhere access
to mission-critical data by mobile workers is necessary for them to perform
effectively in the field. Such a trend is a major security challenge for the mobile
infrastructure because wireless communications rely on public airways. For sensitive
business data, proper measures, such as secure end-to-end encryption, are required to
protect the privacy and ensure the integrity of the data. There are multiple facets of
security in mobile computing including: network security, system security,
information security, and physical security.
Security mechanisms of existing IT
infrastructures provide the basic foundation for mobile security management.
Security technologies may be embedded in mobile devices and also integrated in
various layers of mobile architecture.
Important security technologies include
firewalls, authentication servers, biometrics, cryptography, and Virtual Private
Network (VPN) [38].
18
6.
Standards for mobile computing: Markup languages and Web
services
Many standards have been developed to provide interoperability among various
mobile devices and software components. A mobile computing architecture should be
defined and developed according to standards to ensure the flexibility and expandability
of the mobile architecture. In this section, we focus our discussion on software standards
for mobile computing.
6.1
XML and markup languages
XML definition language is a meta-language to define new markup languages.
Currently, there are two "standards" used as XML definition languages: XML 1.0 W3C
Recommendation and XML Schema. The structure of a document is defined by XML
DTD or XSD files. The content is captured in actual XML documents. There are two
approaches to handle the display aspect of XML documents: XSL and XML parsers.
XSL (eXtensible Stylesheet Language) 1.0 is a W3C Recommendation [39] that specifies
how one can convert an XML document to another document format. XML parsers are
program libraries that can be used by a programming language to process XML data.
There are several web page specification markup languages such as WML and
cHTML. Wireless Markup Language (WML) 1.0 used in WAP-enabled phones is a
XML-compliant document format. cHTML used in DoCoMo's iMode is a subset of
HTML for small information appliances. WAP 2.0 has adopted XHTML which is a
reformulation of HTML 4 as an XML 1.0 application. iMode may migrate to XHTML in
the near future [34].
When a mobile device requests a web page implemented by a
19
server-side scripting program such as ASP and JSP, the program can detect the requesting
browser type by examining the HTTP_USER_AGENT CGI variable [43]. The program
can then dynamically apply an appropriate XSL template file to transform an XML
document to a format (e.g., WML, cHTML, XHTML, and HTML) that is appropriate for
the requesting mobile device.
6.2
SynchML
As mobile computing devices continue to proliferate, users will demand
ubiquitous and consistent access to up-to-date information and applications.
IT
organizations will need standards to ensure consistency and a common data protection
protocol for mobile device access to the corporate server. SyncML is the leading openindustry standard for universal synchronization of PIM data leveraging XML standards
[22, 32].
SyncML is sponsored by leading mobile and wireless organizations and vendors
such as Ericsson, IBM, Motorola, Nokia, and OpenWave, etc.
It is a standard for
implementing two-way synchronizing mechanism for all devices and applications over
any network. Some vendors have remained non-committal. For example, Microsoft has
developed its own ActiveSync synchronization software for its Pocket PCs for
applications such as Microsoft Outlook.
6.3
Web services
Web services provide a standard-based approach to implementing distributed
components. Web services offer data and business logic services over standard protocols
such as HTTP, XML, and SOAP over the Internet. Gartner, an IT research firm, defines
Web services as "loosely coupled software components delivered over Internet-standard
20
technologies" [37].
"Loosely coupled" implies that the Web services are impendent of
any programming languages, platforms, and object models. Using the ubiquitous and
low-cost Internet, Web services can easily provide software functions over the internal
networks and the public Internet for mobile computing applications [24]
Mobile computing devices that are capable of consuming Web services can use
distributed components implemented as Web services to get access to legacy data and
applications [40]. This approach will enrich the functionality of mobile applications as
well as increase the reusability of distributed software components.
As a result,
maintenance of business logic that is shared by both mobile and non-mobile applications
will be easier.
7
Conclusions
With mobile computing and wireless networking, people can conduct businesses
at any time without been constrained by the availability of physical networking
connections or specific computing platforms. With information delivered to employees
at their fingertips while away from their offices, employees can increase their
responsiveness and productivity. The proposed methodology in this paper is an attempt
to identify some guidelines and formulate a life-cycle approach to assisting enterprises in
planning and developing enterprise-wide mobile strategies and applications.
The methodology may also help researchers identify areas where further research
may be called for. For example, in our literature research, we found that there is a lack of
research on mobile workforces.
More rigorous and large scale studies on mobile
applications usage patterns are very much in need. Field studies of how companies plan
21
and deploy their mobile strategies in conjunction with measurements of the resulting
business performance improvement can help the further development of the proposed
methodology.
References and Notes
1. Arar, Y. (2002) ‘Starbucks Expands Wireless Internet Offering’, PC World, 21
August, http://www.idg.net/ic_955739_5056_1-2792.html
2. Beaulieu, M. (2001) Wireless Internet Applications and Architecture: Building
Professional Wireless Applications Worldwide, Addison-Wesley.
3. Bevis D. and Patterson L. (2002) ‘Extending enterprise applications to mobile
users’, July, http://www-3.ibm.com/software/pervasive/tech/pdf/PVC_WP.pdf
4. Chen, M. (1999) ‘BPR Methodologies: Methods and Tools’, in J. D. Elzinga, T. R.
Gulledge and C. Y. Lee (eds.), Process Engineering: Advancing the State of the Art,
Kluwer Academic Publishers, Norwell, MA, pp. 187-211.
5. Extended Systems (2002) ‘Moses Cone Health System: Hospital’s Mobile IT Strategy
Improves Patient Care, Delivers Fast ROI’, http://www.extendedsystems.com/
6. Hicks, M. (2002) ‘Microsoft Turns on SQL Server Notification Services’, 28 August,
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,490906,00.asp
7. Hild, S. G., etc. (2001) ‘Application Hosting for Pervasive Computing’, IBM Systems
Journal, Vo. 40, No. 1, pp. 193-219.
8. Hirsh, L. (2002) ‘Why Consumers Are Not Buying M-Commerce’, Wireless
NewsFactor, 25 February http://www.wirelessnewsfactor.com/perl/story/16484.html
9. IBM (2001) The Executive E-Business Infrastructure Guide.
10. Intel (2002) ‘IT Mobility Road Map: Past, Present, and Future Plans, Intel
Information Technology Worldwide’, April, http://www.intel.com/eBusiness/pdf/it/
pp021802.pdf
11. Intel (2002) ‘Wireless Technology for Enterprises: High Payback Opportunities’,
August, http://www.intel.com/pca/developernetwork/doc/horiz_clarity.pdf
12. Intel (2002) ‘Mobile PCs and Wireless: Business Users Make the Productivity
Connection’, 2 September, http://intel.com/eBusiness/pdf/prod/mobile/p4pm/wp020
902.pdf
13. KPMG (2002), ‘Leveraging Mobile Technology to Improve Communications’,
KPMG Consulting, http://www.bearingpoint.com/library/pdfs/MOBLFAMILY.pdf>.
14. KPMG Consulting (2002) ‘ready.SetGo! MOBILE FAST
http://www.bearingpoint.com/library/pdfs/ready_set_go_mobile.pdf
TRACK’,
15. Louis, P. J. (2001) M-Commerce Crash Course, Boston, MA, McGraw-Hill.
22
16. Lyman, J. (2002), ‘Bluetooth Shows Signs of Life’, 14 August, http://www.Wireless
NewsFactor.com
17. Malhotra, V. (2001), ‘Introduction to SMS’, June, https://www6.software.ibm.com/
developerworks/education/wi-sms/
18. Marca, D. A. and McGowan, C. L. (1993) IDEF0 - SADT Business Process &
Enterprise Modelling, Eclectic Solutions Corp.
19. Marcus, A. (2001) ‘Babyface Design for Mobile Devices and the Web’, in M. J.
Smith and G. Salvendy (eds.), Proceedings, Vol. 2, Human-Computer Interface
International (HCII), New Orleans, LA, USA, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,
Mahwah, NJ, pp. 514-518.
20. Martin, J. (1990) Information Engineering Book II: Planning and Analysis,
Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice Hall.
21. Martin, J. A. (2002) ‘Mobile Computing: Wireless Web Served at Starbucks’, 10
October, http://www.idg.net/ic_955739_5056_1-2792.html
22. McCarthy, V. (2002) ‘OMA eyes wireless developers' architecture by year's end’, 30
June, http://www.integrationdevelopernews.com/IntegrationNews.asp?ID=16
23. McCoy D., etc. (2002),
Research, AV-15-1547.
‘Gartner Predicts 2002: Top 10 Predictions’, Gartner
24. Mello, A. (2002) ‘Can Web services drive mobile apps?’
http://www.zdnet.com/filters/printerfriendly/0,6061,2863482-92,00.html
1
May,
25. Microsoft (2002) ‘SQL Server CE 2.0 Product Overview’, 16 September,
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/ce/productinfo/overview.asp
26. Microsoft (2002) ‘Notification Services Overview’, 10 October, http://www.
microsoft.com/sql/NS/overview.asp
27. m-Travel.com (2002) ‘Study finds mobile workforce growth continues’, 2 July,
http://www.m-travel.com/20702a.shtml
28. PricewaterhouseCoopers (2001) Technology Forecast: 2001-2003.
29. Roussos, G., etc. (2002)
‘A Case Study in Pervasive Retail’, Proceedings of the
Second International Workshop on Mobile Commerce, Atlanta, Georgia, USA,
Published by ACM Press New York, NY, USA.
30. Sairamesh, J., etc. (2001), ‘Wireless trading in B2B markets: concepts, architecture,
and experiences’, Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Mobile
Commerce, Rome, Italy, pp. 7-13.
31. Schultz, B. (2001) The M-Commerce Fallacy, 26 February, http://www.
nwfusion.com/ecomm2001/mcom/mcom.html>
32. Stemberger, S. (2001) ‘An Introduction to SyncML’, October, http://www106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/wi-syncml/?dwzone=wireless#2
33. Stone, A. (2001), Customer Relationship Management Goes Mobile, 21 August,
http://www.mcommercetimes.com/Services/160
23
34. Sutherland, E. (2001) ‘XHTML Basic to Replace cHTML and WML’, February,
http://www.mcommercetimes.com/Technology/82
35. Symbian (2002) ‘Symbian Technology’, 14 October, http://www.symbian.com/
technology/technology.html
36. Texas Instruments (1990) A Guide to Information Engineering Using IEF: ComputerAided Planning, Analysis, and Design, 2nd edition.
37. Vecchio, D. (2001) ‘Legacy Software: Junkyard Wars for Web Services?’ Gartner
Symposium/ITxpo, Orlando, FL, USA.
38. VPN Consortium (2002) ‘VPN Technologies: Definitions and Requirements’, June,
http://www.vpnc.org/vpn-technologies.pdf
39. W3C (2001) ‘Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) Version 1.0’, W3C
Recommendation, 15 October, http://www.w3.org/TR/xsl/
40. Wigley, A. and Roxburgh, P. (2002) Building .NET Applications for Mobile Devices,
Microsoft Press.
41. Wohl, A. D. (2002) ‘Is There a Killer App for Mobile?’ http://www.wohl.com/
wa0231.htm
42. Wrolstad, J. (2002) Mobile Workforce Nears 100-Million Mark,
http://www.wirelessnewsfactor.com/perl/story/18453.html
1 July,
43. Wyke, R. A., Rehman, S., and Leupen, B. (2002) XML Programming, Microsoft
Press.
44. Zeosoft (2002) ‘Wireless Trends/Perspective’, http://www.zeosoft.com/htmlsite
/about/wirelesstrends.cfm
45. Zetie, C. (2002) ‘Essential Elements of a Mobile Enterprise Strategy’, Giga
Information.
24