Mobile devices offer many benefits to remote workers in field sales, field service, field inspection, warehouse operations, and similar "non-desk jobs". Foresighted organizations are starting to deploy applications on these devices to their remote workers, as the speed, coverage areas and reliability of data wireless networks continue to grow.

Mobile applications provide easily proven ROI (Return On Investment), which has been well documented in many recent studies and articles.

The many potential benefits of mobile applications include:

• Better access to customer and product data increases sales effectiveness, which increases revenues
• Mobile data access and validation reduces error rates, which reduces costs and provides better customer service
• Mobile data access reduces the use of printed reports, which reduces costs and improves productivity
• Mobile data access reduces the need for telephone calls to the home office to obtain information, which reduces costs and improves productivity
• Better customer service increases customer satisfaction and loyalty, which increases repeat business, which increases revenue, and provides strategic advantage
• Automated data capture and activity tracking with mobile devices provides better information for management decision-making, which provides strategic advantage

The "entry level" of mobile connectivity includes basic generic capabilities such as voice calls, voice mail, instant messaging (IM), email, web pages, and "push" content delivery for stock quotes etc.

While this level is the most easily deployed and provides many obvious useful features, it only scratches the surface of the potential benefits that can be obtained by providing deeper levels of access to corporate information.

An often overlooked but real cost of voice calls, voice mail, email and instant messaging is that it always consumes two people’s time, one to compose/send the message, and the second to receive/record it. This doubles the labor cost of accessing a specific piece of information.

What’s more, voice calls and IM are intrusive, they interrupt the person being called. If the person who needs information can access it directly, when (and only when) it is needed, without involving anyone else, this provides a clear advantage in labor savings and improved productivity.

This discussion focuses on important enterprise activities that require mobile access to one or more back office database applications, such as order entry, customer service, CRM, inventory management, and similar core business functions.

Some examples of common business applications that are good candidates for extending to mobile workers include:

The challenge is to develop and deploy programs on a mobile device that can interact with an enterprise application, operating in either an online wireless mode or an offline mode. Also it should be able to use local databases on a PDA, such as Oracle 9i Lite or Sybase ASA products, to provide powerful local processing capabilities on these increasingly powerful and popular handheld devices. These features are essential when using PDAs in areas where wireless operation is not possible or is forbidden (such as medical facilities).

Mobile devices with adequate ways to enter information, and large enough screens to display more than simple text messages, are needed here. Small screens and limited input mechanisms of pagers and cell phones cripple productivity.

Such devices are not well-suited for these purposes. PDAs, smart phones, tablet PCs and and notebook PCs provide the needed input and display features, along with robust operating systems that are designed to run full-fledged business application programs.

• PC-card slots in notebook and tablets
• PDAs can be fitted with "sleds" to add PC-card capability

• Compac Flash slot format.
• Smaller than PC-card.
• Adapters available to convert CF to PC card format

• Still spotty in USA
• good near major cities
• good near major highways
• Nearly continuous coverage in Europe
• Possibly poor in mountainous areas

The majority of mobile applications developed to date have been implemented using either "thin client" or "thick client" designs, with very few exceptions.

A "thin client" is usually defined as a computer that stores nothing locally. All application programs and data are stored on the server.

For mobile devices, this typically means that no special software or data storage resides on the device, except whatever came with the device originally. This usually means a web browser (with reduced functionality compared to PC versions), and possibly an email client.

The primary advantage of thin-client designs is that there is no deployment requirement. The devices are able to provide real-time access to data "out of the box".

However, the disadvantages are more numerous and more serious:

• If the software is too thin, functionality will be lost
• Browser-based applications only work if you are online. If you cannot connect or lose your connection, you are dead in the water.
• To support a variety of devices, expensive server-based "transformation middleware" products must usually be purchased and integrated into existing back-office applications.

Industry analysts have recognized these issues:

Many problems with current web apps are noted by Forrester Research:

• Primitive functionality:
  "HTTP was designed for document browsing, not complex application interactions."
• Bandwidth gluttony:
  "Each time a server needs to update a few bytes on a Web page it sends the entire page."
• Terrible usability:
  "Forrester has evaluated more than a dozen browser-based apps to see how well they meet end-user needs. Not one application has earned a passing score."

A thick client (often called "fat client") can be defined as a client machine in a client/server environment that performs most or all of the application processing with little or none performed in the server.

For mobile devices, this typically means most of the application software and data storage resides on the device. The programs are usually written in a 3^rd-generation language such as C, C++, C#, Visual Basic or Java. The data storage often uses a scaled-down version of an enterprise database such as those offered by Oracle, Microsoft, and Sybase, and require server-based synchronization software products.

The primary advantage of thick-client designs is that they do not require "always-on" connectivity, they are designed to work in a disconnected (off-line) mode. This overcomes one of the main weaknesses of thin client designs.

However, like thin-client design, thick-client designs suffer from a number of disadvantages:

• If the application is too thick, deployment and maintenance become backbreaking projects that consume large amounts of time and money.
• Local applications typically do NOT provide any online access
• 3GL-based applications are the most expensive type to develop
• Thick clients usually require elaborate batch client/host synchronization procedures to upload/download data between the client database and the central server database, that require expensive server software.

Microsoft’s .NET architecture falls into this thick client grouping as well, although with better connectivity. It requires a very large client footprint runtime engine, programming in a 3GL, and a very complex architecture with considerable overhead that is not yet well supported on most client or server platforms.

The .NET client side CLI (Common Language Interface) competes with the Java Runtime Environment (JRE). It does NOT solve deployment problems. On the host side, its Messaging Servers use a SOAP interface that competes with middleware vendors and with messaging server vendors such as IBM and Oracle.

The term "X Internet" client was coined by Forrester Research, to refer to an eXecutable Internet client with software that falls between the thin and thick models. Such a client was defined in two Forrester articles.

The X Internet Revives UI Design ⁽¹⁾

This article discusses the problems with clients that are too thin. The mobile environment magnifies the consideration of these issues

• Simplistic Web UIs disappoint users and designers.
• New smart clients and UI servers aim at richer experiences.
• X Internet apps bring back split-second performance.
• Designers must use cached data to anticipate user actions.

X Internet Clients Save Enterprise Apps ⁽²⁾

Forrester spoke with 30 IT execs at $1 billion-plus firms. Thin client UIs are favored by 73% of respondents, citing ease of deployment, simplified access to applications, and lower maintenance costs as top advantages. More than half say that poor usability plagues their enterprise apps.

X Internet tools let firms build Net-based apps that:

• Boost user experience.
  "improved functionality and responsiveness"
• Trim bandwidth consumption.
  "1 KB to 2KB XML files replace 50K to 200K Web pages"
• Leverage current application investments
  "support XML-based Web services."
• Unleash designers.
  "With executable Internet apps, designers can take advantage of real-time data manipulation and rich client-side functionality"

In summary, we believe (with Forrester) that the future of web apps will involve:

Applications that:

• run both online and offline
• operate in multiple mobile environments
• run in multiple host environments
• work with clip on devices
• are self deploying using Internet technology
• are easy and fast to develop

The Jargon Software deployment engine allows developers to create applications that can directly manipulate individual components (such as a text field for street address), either by using client side script methods or from host code running via HTTP-compliant middleware on some server.

The Jargon Reader smart agent is deployed once on each mobile device when it is first provisioned. This agent downloads the application XML files from servers in a manner similar to how a web browser reads HTML files from a host. Since these XML files can reside on a host and represent the client side of a business application, this provides an ideal ASP deployment model- ALL code on the host. This makes an application rentable. It also makes the application easy to maintain since the changes only need to be done on the host.

Jargon Reader can also run disconnected from the server. It can store data locally in standard text or table components, for low-volume data. When higher-volume local data storage is needed, Jargon Reader can use local relational database managers such as Oracle Lite or Sybase IAnywhere products, or any ODBC compliant database manager. Access to a local database is via standard ODBC/SQL commands. This allows an application to work offline or online as needed, since wireless service is not always available. Some desktops may be wired, some may not (such as a wireless tablet for example).

• Simple deployment
• Low deployment/support costs
• High functionality
• High performance
• Open connectivity
• Usable both online AND offline
• Fast development

Jargon Software’s tools enable developers to easily create, deploy and maintain mobile applications that extend the existing back-office enterprise applications. Compared to the alternatives, Jargon Software’s approach is faster, cheaper and better.

The benefits provided by Jargon Software technology include:

• Applications run online and offline
  
• Applications run in multiple mobile device environments
  
• Applications work with clip on devices
  
• Applications are self deploying using Internet technology
  
• Applications runs in multiple host environments
  
• Applications are easy and fast to develop

Jargon Software Inc. is a Minnesota-based software development company, founded in 1997, that provides innovative solutions for the e-business software tools market.

• business applications
• desktop and mobile client devices
• application software vendors
• corporate developers