Web Services

I recently presented a case study on mobile business at a local ColdFusion Users Group in Salt Lake City. Two questions dominated the Q & A section.

How productive can you be with a handheld and what tools can you use to create applications for it? To give you an idea of productivity, I'm writing the first part of this article at my daughter's swim meet. Trying to be a good father, I stop during her races to cheer her on.

As the workforce becomes more mobile, business people need to have customer information on hand in order to have a competitive edge. New devices and technologies, such as handhelds, Bluetooth, and Smartphones, are becoming available in the marketplace; businesses are trying to understand how to incorporate these devices into their infrastructure to get the advantage they desire. Not only do these devices have to be placed into the infrastructure, there also needs to be applications available in order for businesses to provide better service to their customers and get a full ROI for the company. The mobile configuration that I currently use is a Handspring Prism with the following accessories: folding keyboard, modem, digital camera, 16MB Flash memory, and scanner.

The mobile application world is fascinating. We need to create applications that can be distributed, so workers can do their jobs and not be tied to a desk. To improve worker performance, many companies want to put a focused amount of enterprise data into an application that resides in a pocket-size device. I think James Bond would be proud of what we can do these days. I'll focus on platforms and development tools that work with the UltraLite deployment tool.

Let's first look at handheld OS platforms. You'd think this would trim down the field on development tools, but not this time. The UltraLite can be deployed on the following platforms:

• Palm
• Windows CE
• Symbian

As you can see, the UltraLite deployment package works on major handheld platforms. This is nice to know, in case your company changes platforms because of feature requests or enterprise architectural changes. It doesn't happen often, but it can. Table 1 provides a matrix for UltraLite and supported platforms.

This brings us to which tools you can use to create handheld applications. There are several to choose from; it all depends on your criteria and what you want to accomplish. Review your requirements when looking at which tool you want to use. Realize also that there are implicit constraints on the hardware that you might be overlooking. These could include memory, speed, and screen size. Going from client/server or browser-based to handheld application development can take some getting used to. The following is a list of the tools that I reviewed that work with UltraLite.

• CodeWarrior
• MobileVB
• MobileBuilder
• Java
• Embedded Visual Basic

CodeWarrior from Metrowerks is for experienced "C" developers. It has a nice IDE and you can accomplish many things with it. One nice feature is the debug option with the emulator as it allows you to see how the variables and workflow are really being used. Its IDE history is from the Mac arena, so it may seem hard in the beginning, but it's easy to work through. I like this product. When I create an application for the Palm OS, I just send out one file, making it easy to deploy. There are tools for Palm, Symbian, and J2ME environments. One nice feature from Metrowerks is CodeWarriorU.com, an online tutorial section. Check it out; it has some good courses.

MobileVB from Appforge works on Palm, Pocket PC, and Symbian. If you understand Visual Basic, you won't have any problems with this tool. This is an add-on package for the VB Studio; it works on dragging and dropping visual objects onto the screen. You then code the events with business logic to complete the application. You'll need to purchase the Booster VM separately so the application can interpret the code effectively.

MobileBuilder from PenRight is a single custom application package designed to generate handheld applications specific to certain operating systems. This is a nice feature if you'll be jumping between different platforms. I don't see this happening too often, since many information system administrators don't like swapping devices; it causes headaches and heartburn. One thing about this software is that you also need a runtime library to operate your application on the device.

Java is used within the UltraLite Component Suite Toolkit. Native UltraLite for Java supports the Jeode VM on Windows CE/ARM devices including the Compaq iPAQ and NEC MobilePro P300, which have the Jeode VM. Windows operating systems other than Windows CE are supported for testing and development purposes only.

The Embedded Visual Basic piece is an ActiveX component targeted for 386 and ARM processor devices. I have not had a chance to do any research with this product, so I can't say much about it.

All these packages help create applications for handheld devices. You will need to know the available features in order to get a firm grasp on which package to use. Realize also that these packages will leapfrog each other. This means that if one toolset has a feature that's liked by the general populace, the others will follow to make sure they're not losing clients. As these tools get more sophisticated, there will be libraries created to make development even easier. In many cases, these libraries already exist. You just have to know where to look and how to incorporate them.

CodeWarrior: www.metrowerks.com

MobileVB: www.appforge.com

MobileBuilder: www.penright.com

UltraLite Component Suite (Java, Embedded VB): www.sybase.com/developer/mobile/ulcs

As you can see many products are available that can be used to create applications for handheld devices. This list is just the beginning and there will be more coming down the pipeline as systems mature and developers push the limits of those systems. I use CodeWarrior for Palm development. I like the text-based and OO development approach. Reusing classes helps reduce development time. I also realize that each developer is different, so please check out what's available. I am looking forward to developing a J2ME application for a phone to see how it works.

As I was looking at the various targeted platforms, I noticed that the ARM processor is being used in Pocket PC systems. I'm looking forward to seeing what will happen with the Palm OS 5, since it's using the ARM processor. Will these products that are targeting the ARM processor also be able to use Palm OS devices along with Pocket PC devices? Only time will tell.

Businesses are starting to see how mobile applications can help them: a better quality of data is being entered into the system; the need for double entry or entering data from a fax by the salesperson has been removed; and customer service problems and requests are handled in a timely fashion. We are also seeing areas for better forecasting of products and services. This helps not only the company, but also the clients. It's a win/win solution for everyone.

Published Feb. 1, 2003— Reads 9,839
Copyright © 2003 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
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About Scott Heffron
Scott Heffron is a senior application engineer located in the Salt Lake City area. He has been involved in client/server, GIS and Web projects for the past 10 years. He is currently working on WAP technologies.