by Piroz Mohseni
07/28/2000
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Related Articles: Start Coding: An Introduction to WML |
Wrox's first Wireless Developer Conference, held in Amsterdam from July 10-12, was a chance for about 400 wireless developers to gather and discuss common issues. While the majority of participants and speakers were from Europe, the conference did have a global theme and audience, and it showed that, despite differences in standards and technologies, wireless application developers around the globe are facing very similar problems.
WAP's Niche Isn't the Web
A major theme of the keynotes was that wireless markets suffer from a comparison to the Web.
Ross Bott from Phone.com opened the first day by emphasizing that wireless applications and Internet applications are different in nature and should be looked at from separate perspectives. For one thing, wireless applications are more personal and involve smaller sets of information.
Gregory Gorman of the Open Group talked on the second day about how the direct comparison between WAP and the "Web" has had a negative impact on the WAP industry by raising expectations. He explained that WAP-based application have a specific niche that is highly personalized, smart, and localized.
"The days of developing applications for a single channel (desktop browsers) are over, and from now on, applications must be delivered to a variety of channels. ... XML is the core technology that is going to make this a reality." |
The talks touched on a variety of issues that wireless developers face, including XML-based content and transformation, security, device-specific limitations, and design guidelines. It was clear that the days of developing applications for a single channel (desktop browsers) are over, and from now on, applications must be delivered to a variety of channels with substantially different capabilities. A general theme was that XML is the core technology that is going to make this a reality. There were a number of talks on XSLT with demos showing how a single XML file representing some data (WML) could look different on different devices. Supporting technologies like servlets, JSP, ASP, and ColdFusion were all discussed in this context.
One good thing about the conference was that, despite the fact that it was in Europe, many devices were covered, including Windows CE, Palm, and Psion. It was interesting to hear developers discuss the challenges they faced for each device and to see how many of those challenges were essentially the same.
Java and MOM
Java for mobile devices was another common theme. Clearly, Java can be used on the server to support wireless applications using servlets or JSP. Java also is very advanced in its support for XML parsers and XSL processors. Many vendors have a Java-based SDK for their devices. For example, Ericsson has the Java Application Framework (JAWAP), Sun has the KVM for the Palm platform, and Symbian has a Java SDK for the EPOC-based systems.
Messaging and middleware was another interesting topic. At first I was puzzled as to how these technologies related to small devices, but their need became clear quickly. Consider an e-commerce application that you have accessed through your cell phone. What would happen if you enter a tunnel or your cell phone goes out of its service area right after you submit your order? Message Oriented Middleware (MOM) and mobile database technologies try to address such issues. These include products like Oracle8i Lite, Sybase iAnyWhere, and Softwired iBus.
Synchronization of data stored in small devices with data stored in the enterprise is also an interesting problem space. It is relatively straightforward when you have to synchronize your Palm with your desktop, but how do you synchronize 20,000 PalmPilots across the global enterprise? There were a number of good talks on these issues where various solutions and products were discussed, including Avantgo and jSyncManager.
Conference organizers had done a good job of mixing several case studies among the various talks. After attending a few technical sessions, it was very useful to hear about an actual implementation and the choices and difficulties faced in a real project. Case studies from the banking, entertainment, and airline industries were presented.
Wrox also launched their new book, "Professional WAP," at the conference by distributing a copy to each attendee. Despite its relative small size, the conference was very informative and touched upon many aspects of wireless development. Developers who were new to wireless technologies were glad to find out that some of the same technologies used in Web development (i.e., XML, servlets, JSP, XSL, etc.) are used for wireless application development.
At the same time, the challenge is to create applications that can support a variety of delivery channels. Meeting that challenge requires a different perspective on application architecture and the potential audience.
More information about the Wrox Wireless conference can be found at the Wrox Conferences site.
Piroz Mohseni is president of Bita Technologies; his areas of interest include enterprise Java, XML, and e-commerce applications.
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