Building wireless apps just got easier

The best tool for giving mobile workers wireless access to a vertical market application is iConverse's Mobile Studio and Interaction Server.

By Barry Nance
Network World, 06/25/01

Most companies have core business functions that occur outside the main office. At the auto body shop, an insurance claims adjuster inspects the damage to an accident vehicle. A telephone or power company repairman connects wires atop a utility pole or on-site at a customer's home or business. Truck drivers deliver goods to a customer's destinations. Sales representatives visit customers to offer products and close deals. In the past, automation of these core business functions typically implied filling out forms at the remote location and transcribing the forms data into the computer when the person returned to the company's office.

Taking a notebook computer into the field helps alleviate the need to fill out forms, but remote workers still cannot connect to the main network until they return to the office.

What if the remote worker could have wireless access to the company's network via a Wireless Application Protocol (WAP)-enabled cell phone or wireless PDA? The remote worker could then use the application software anywhere. However, the different sets of user interface constraints posed by wireless devices and the diverse markup languages for controlling the handheld devices' interfaces are major issues. The limited screen view of a few lines of LCD text on a cell phone display or PDA is a far cry from the rich graphical interface of Windows, the Macintosh or X-Windows. An application typically gets to present just a few data values or ask a single question per screen. Voice recognition and voice synthesis complicate matters even more.

This opens up a world of questions. How will your networked application infrastructure change when you give remote workers wireless devices to take into the field? What new servers, software and protocols will you need to support? How do you change or create a vertical-market business application to work with wireless devices? Which devices will you be locked into using?

Fortunately, several software vendors offer tools that help give your business applications an interface that works with myriad wireless devices. We tested seven of these mobile application development tools. Each company claims its tool works with more devices, takes advantage of more wireless device features, is painless and quick to use, adheres to industry standards and is scalable and secure. The seven wireless application environments were Air2Web's Mobile Internet Platform 2.1, Aligo's M-1 Mobile Application Server 1.0, AnyDevice's GoAnywhere Platform 2.32, iConverse's Mobile Studio 2.0 and Interaction Server 2.0, MobileQ's XMLEdge 2.6, ViaFone's OneBridge Mobility Platform 2.0 and Wireless Knowledge's Echo 1.1.253. (Editor's Note: At the time of publication, AnyDevice announced a merger with HiddenMind Technology)

Our tests (see "How we did it") showed the best tool for extending an application into the wireless realm was iConverse's Mobile Studio and Interaction Server, which won our Blue Ribbon Award. Although ViaFone's device attributes and parameters table are better organized, and Aligo's M-1 Mobile Application Server has a better architecture, iConverse's Mobile Studio and Interaction Server won for its depth of support for a range of devices and superior user interface.

Wireless sets

IConverse's Mobile Studio and Interaction Server gave the best access to our wireless handheld's features, followed closely by ViaFone's OneBridge and AnyDevice's GoAnywhere Platform.

IConverse's Mobile Studio and Interaction Server has at its core an extensive database of device characteristics. The database isn't relational, but it helps Mobile Studio and Interaction Server support virtually every existing model of WAP, PDA, two-way pager, iMode device and pure voice device. Mobile Studio and Interaction Server work with handhelds that understand Wireless Markup Language (WML), Handheld Device Markup Language (HDML), Compact HTML (CHTML) and HTML. Moreover, the level of browser control rivaled OneBridge's in our tests. Whether working with the Palm PQA or the GoAmerica network browsers, Mobile Studio and Interaction Server's wireless device displays always looked good.

We liked ViaFone's parameterized, table-driven approach to supporting a range of different mobile devices in OneBridge. OneBridge's hierarchical table of device attributes, which ViaFone calls the Universal Device Library (UDL), quantifies and parameterizes mobile device details such as user agent (for example, combination of browser and operating system), screen details (size, number of lines, character count limit, color and graphics rendering features), I/O capabilities and cache size.

ViaFone populates OneBridge's device attributes table with a lengthy list of devices. OneBridge has optimized support for 20 WAP phones, five PDAs and two Research In Motion (RIM) pagers, and the table contains specific device support for dozens of wireless handhelds, including phones, iMode devices and PDAs. Further, OneBridge has generic support for clipped HTML, iMode-CHTML, WML, the Nokia WAP browser, the Ericsson WAP browser, the Phone.com (OpenWave) WAP browser, an HDML-compatible browser, the Neomar browser and the 4th Pass _K-browser. New to OneBridge 2.0, released just as we finished this review, is VoiceXML and generic interactive voice response (IVR) support. Although the new voice feature arrived too late for us to test in the lab, a demonstration that ViaFone provided was remarkable.

OneBridge's Mobile Presentation Server component dynamically optimizes the rendering and presentation of the application's data according to the mobile device's UDL attributes. Because Mobile Presentation Server has a wealth of information about a device's form factor, screen size, number of lines, browser version, graphics/image/color support, I/O capabilities, soft keys, touch screen, network bandwidth and gateway properties, it knows exactly how to best use markup language features for that device.

Like ViaFone's OneBridge, AnyDevice's GoAnywhere Platform is table-driven, but GoAnywhere Platform's table lacked ViaFone's hierarchical approach and thus was not as well organized. Nonetheless, GoAnywhere Platform supports a long list of WAP/WML phones, PDAs, two-way pagers, iMode devices and pure voice devices.

Air2Web works through standard protocols - rather than specific device parameters - to support a range of handhelds. For one-way (receiving) and two-way (sending and receiving) Short Messaging Service (SMS) devices, Air2Web uses Short Messaging Service Channel (SMSC) technology to present up to 160 characters of application data on SMS-compliant pagers. For WAP phones, Air2Web sends WML Version 1.1, 1.2 or 1.3, and Air2Web also supports HDML Version 3.0 and 4.0. For HTML-aware PDAs, such as the Palm V and Palm VII, Air2Web uses HTML Version 3.2 or 4.0. Air2Web supports iMode devices that use Japan's DoCoMo technology to exchange Internet data via CHTML Version 1.0 or 2.0 as well as J-phone devices using Mobile Markup Language (MML) Version 1.0 or 2.0. Air2Web can integrate with IVR technology to support pure voice-based applications.

Aligo's M-1 Mobile Application Server contains specific device support for Palm and Handspring PDAs, WAP/WML phones, iMode phones, RIM pagers and Windows CE wireless handhelds.

MobileQ's XMLEdge supports 16 WAP phones, six PDAs and four RIM Blackberry pagers, and it also works with Windows CE devices. Wireless Knowledge's Echo is standards-based, using WML, HDML, HTML (simple content for non-Javascript devices such as Palm PDA browsers or HTML 4.2 for more sophisticated devices), CHTML and clipped HTML. Echo's WML works equally well with Phone.com and Nokia/Ericsson user interfaces.

Mobile architecture

A highly scalable Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) application server environment geared to wireless communications, Aligo's M-1 Mobile Application Server's architecture is an impressive, scalable design that most customers will find easy to integrate with existing applications. Mobile Application Server is like having IBM's WebSphere or BEA Systems' WebLogic application server already set up to deliver application data to mobile devices.

M-1 Mobile Application Server's components, which are Java2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE)- and EJB-based, are the AligoServlet, Presentation Engine, Session Manager, Cache Manager, Unified Messaging Services Manager and Data Access Manager. Creating wireless application business logic was simple within M-1 Mobile Application Server. Configuring and extending AligoServlet, which controls the management functions associated with an application, was particularly easy. Aligo's design uses an XML-based property file to identify and control AligoServlet's actions and extensions.

The Presentation Engine delivers a Java application's dynamic content to wireless devices. In our tests, it smartly transformed our business application's dialog material, represented in XML, into device-specific control language. We could even optionally override the presentation output via Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL), which let us use style sheets to gain control over formatting. Aligo's Presentation Engine also includes support for VoiceXML. Text-to-speech is a simple device-configuration option, and speech-to-text merely requires adding the appropriate application-specific grammar files to M-1 Mobile Application Server. Aligo's Data Access Manager provides Java Database Connectivity.

Interaction Server, iConverse's run-time component, is a Java application that requires a J2EE application server environment, such as BEA Systems' WebLogic (we tested with WebLogic 5.1). For each wireless message an application wants to transmit to a mobile user, iConverse Interaction Server identifies the user's specific device, renders the appropriate response and then dynamically serves the content in a format that takes advantage of the features of that device. For pure voice, Interaction Server incorporates iConverse's patent-pending speech technology, called Grammar-by-Example. The result is quicker development because the application designer's grammar specifications are much simpler than for the other mobile application tools we tested.

Like iConverse's Interaction Server, ViaFone's OneBridge runs in a J2EE application server environment. OneBridge consists of Mobile Application Server, Mobile Presentation Server and Mobile Application Repository. Just as we finished this review, ViaFone released another component, called Dialog Server. Using IVR or VoiceXML, Dialog Server gives OneBridge speech-handling capabilities. Among themselves and with respect to the application, OneBridge modules communicate via XML. Mobile Application Server works with your application as your business logic decides the next dialog elements that should appear on the wireless device. Mobile Presentation Server uses Mobile Application Repository and UDL to transform an application's XML representation of wireless content into device-specific markup language.

Out of necessity, Air2Web's Mobile Internet Platform uses a Web-based architecture. Air2Web doesn't distribute its software on CD-ROMs; rather, developers connect to the company's password-protected Web site to create and administer their mobile applications. At run time, users connect to Air2Web to use their applications, and the Air2Web Mobile Internet Platform software manages the production environment.

Mobile Internet Platform is almost completely XML-based. All application dialogs, for development and production, consist of XML requests and responses the developer creates. Via HTTP or Secure-HTTP, Air2Web sends your application an XML message from a wireless device. Your application decides how to respond to the message and returns an XML message to Air2Web, which formats the response according to the device characteristics of the wireless device involved in the session. Mobile Internet Platform uses XML messages to register an application and its objects (which might include style sheets, audio files and predetermined XML messages), register the wireless application dialogs that you design, identify wireless users and their devices, and carry on dialogs with wireless devices.

On one hand, you use whatever programming languages and operational environment your organization prefers with Air2Web's Mobile Internet Platform. On the other, your ongoing production application depends on Air2Web's company facilities and network infrastructure to a much greater degree than with other mobile application tools. The result is somewhat akin to an outsourcing arrangement. We feel that retaining complete, in-house control over the running of an application is the best approach, but you might not agree. During our tests, Air2Web's development and production facilities were reliably available to us on a 24-7 basis (including Sundays at midnight and later).

At Air2Web's Web site, Mobile Internet Platform consists of API Requester, Application Administration, Audio Administration, Conversation Administration, Style sheet Administration, Subscriber Administration and XML Administration browser-based tool interfaces. API Requester is a test driver for verifying the correct formatting of XML messages. Application Administration sets up or modifies information about an application, which includes the name of the application, whether it shares data with other applications and whether Air2Web or the customer is responsible for wireless device confirmations. The other Web interfaces store audio files, dialog elements, style sheets, lists of authorized wireless users and XML files.

With AnyDevice's GoAnywhere Platform, your application uses the vendor's device-neutral but proprietary language, called SiteXML, for controlling wireless application request/response processing. During development, each application dialog element is expressed in SiteXML and then the application is designed to send the GoAnywhere Platform any SiteXML statements appropriate to the current conversation. AnyDevice Studio is a visual design environment that emits the proprietary SiteXML statements.

The run-time GoAnywhere Platform is a Java application that consists of the Mobility Engine and the Personalization and Notification modules. The Mobility Engine carries on dialogs with wireless devices and with the Java application modules you develop. The Personalization and Notification modules, which consist primarily of AnyDevice Organizer and AnyDevice Manager, let users unobtrusively customize their wireless access and help administrators monitor the running of the application in the AnyDevice environment.

If the application design calls for the use of a relational database for user authentication, AnyDevice requires that it be Oracle Version 8.1.6 or _higher with the Oracle Obfuscation Toolkit. AnyDevice supplies scripts for building the appropriate database objects and schemas.

MobileQ's XMLEdge components include Designer, XMLEdge Server and associated transports, a collection of system administration tools and a testing tool. XMLEdge Server hosts forms that contain Runtime Markup Language (RML) - a proprietary MobileQ XML-like representation of the wireless application dialog. XMLEdge Server also uses RML internally to express session state and application data. Architecturally, XMLEdge Server consists of Transport modules, which are device-specific components for dealing with particular kinds of wireless devices; the Executive module, which controls the flow of application logic according to the responses it receives from wireless devices; and the Metabase, which stores XMLEdge configuration data. Connector modules also help XMLEdge communicate with a database, the application server environment and the application. For scalability, XMLEdge supports hardware or software load-balancing technology.

The system administration components for configuring XMLEdge Servers are a local administration control tool, a server farm manager, a deployment manager and a virtual directory maintenance utility. With these, administrators can make general configuration changes and set up MobileQ Web Redirector. To change Metabase configuration data, an administrator uses the Solaris xemb utility or, for Windows, a registry editor. The System Test Tool is a test driver for verifying conversations without the presence of the application.

Wireless Knowledge's Echo runs within Microsoft's Web server, Internet Information Server (IIS), which only runs on Windows servers. The vendor, a company created by Microsoft and Qualcomm, will offer non-Windows versions of Echo. However, we're skeptical of Microsoft (or a subsidiary) when it promises to produce a non-Windows version of its software.

Echo is a transformation engine that attaches to IIS and listens for requests from wireless devices. When a Web-enabled mobile device requests a Web page, Echo identifies the device to determine what kind of markup language the device uses and then translates a Web application's HTML into that markup language. For example, it sends HTML to Palm devices, WML or HDML to cell phones, and CHTML to iMode devices. Echo acts as a late-in-the-flow HTML filter to modify Web pages after they leave the Web server but before the pages become network traffic. As a result, only Echo knows it's communicating with a wireless device. To the extent that the application's Web page output is already WML-like and simple enough to be translated for a wireless device's small display on an almost one-for-one basis, the application remains unchanged and "wireless-unaware." In this situation, Echo completely insulates the application from the wireless device. In more complex (and likely) situations, designers of Echo-based applications need to partition their presentation material between wireless and nonwireless.

Easy wireless

IConverse Mobile Studio's graphical design environment amazed us with its visual representation of wireless device behavior, intuitive tool set and ability to connect to relational databases for data content preview purposes. As we assembled our application dialogs, the iConverse design environment accurately depicted the effect of our dialogs by showing exactly how the dialog would appear on any device. Creating wireless displays for our applications by using iConverse Mobile Studio was quick and painless. We also appreciated Mobile Studio's visual content-shaping technology, which transformed XML into a format better suited for wireless presentation purposes.

The AnyDevice GoAnywhere Platform design environment rivals that of iConverse. It isn't quite as intuitive but what the AnyDevice Studio lacked in productivity it made up for with its excellent visual preview of wireless device behavior. AnyDevice Studio offers floating tool palettes, drag-and-drop assembly of application dialog components, expandable tree directories and context-sensitive toolbars and controls.

MobileQ's XMLEdge Designer graphical design environment has toolbars for creating and manipulating XMLEdge forms, uses drag-and-drop to help designers place dialog elements in the visual workspace and pops up dialog boxes to capture design properties such as hyperlinks, permitted dialog events and style-sheet relationships.

Aligo released an optional visual development tool called Application Builder just as we finished this review. Application Builder is a welcome addition to M-1 Mobile Application Server, which sorely lacks a visual dialog assembly and preview function for wireless content in our tests.

Air2Web's Web-based Mobile Internet Platform development environment, which operates over the 'Net rather than locally on your computer, doesn't help much with the dialog assembly chores. The development environment consists of administration utilities for storing application-related files at the Air2Web DevCenter. For XML you issue during testing, Air2Web's DevCenter will perform a syntax check to tell you whether the XML conforms to the Air2Web Document Type Definition for mobile wireless applications.

ViaFone's OneBridge gives wireless dialog designers a visual design tool called Application Builder, which offers a tree view of application dialog elements, an XML text editor and a preview pane to monitor the behavior of a wireless device as it responds to the application data. However, ViaFone's preview pane isn't nearly as visually compelling or feature-rich as iConverse's or AnyDevice's. ViaFone's Application Builder includes helpful Page Builder wizards for initially establishing each application dialog. The Page Builder wizards create XML frameworks that then populate via Application Builder's text editor.

Wireless Knowledge's Echo uses the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Windows-based interface for configuration and specification of application dialog HTML-to-wireless translations - another reason we're skeptical the company will some day release a version of Echo that works on non-Windows computers. Within MMC, an administrator uses a Web site's or virtual directory's Mobility tab on its property sheet to enable or disable Echo's translation processing for that site or directory, manage error logging and manage device detection configurations. Echo uses these device detection specifications to identify the model of wireless device associated with each dialog session.

Developers of an Echo-based application can insert script language statements (such as <echo-choose>, <echo-when> and <echo-otherwise>) into a Web site's HTML to designate which portions of a Web page Echo should send to a wireless device. Alternatively, developers can create wireless-only Web pages containing HTML intended only for use by a wireless device.

Standards are a slippery, moving target in the fledgling mobile wireless application arena. For example, almost all cell phone manufacturers claim support for WAP and WML, but we noted that five of the seven software tool vendors in this review have found it necessary to incorporate the detection and handling of specific wireless devices in their mobile application software tools.

All seven tools support WAP/WML, XML and HTML. Air2Web, AnyDevice, iConverse and ViaFone support VoiceXML, and Aligo says its VoiceXML support should be available early this summer. Air2Web supports clipped HTML, SMS, generic IVR, iMode and J-phone standards. Aligo supports clipped HTML, HDML and XSL. AnyDevice uses XSL and HTML, while iConverse has embraced standards for HDML, clipped HTML, SMS, generic IVR, iMode and J-phone. ViaFone also supports SMS, HDML and iMode devices.

ViaFone's OneBridge Mobility Platform offers the best security in a wireless application environment. OneBridge incorporates Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), Wireless Transport Layer Security (WTLS) and public-key infrastructure (PKI) to keep wireless dialogs authentic, private and unmodified in transit.

For security, Air2Web's Mobile Internet Platform uses digital certificates, which you identify when you use Air2Web's DevCenter to create a new application. Because Air2Web becomes your business partner as you design and roll out your mobile application interface, you can also use whatever additional security schemes you and Air2Web agree on.

Aligo's M-1 Mobile Application Server uses the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol for user authentication and PKI for data privacy. AnyDevice's GoAnywhere Platform employs an Oracle database for user authentication and the Oracle Obfuscation Toolkit to encrypt passwords traveling across a network.

The iConverse Interaction Server relies on SSL and incorporates WTLS to keep data confidential. MobileQ says XMLEdge can encrypt wireless communications, but doesn't say which encryption method it uses. Wireless Knowledge says Echo is compatible with SSL and WTLS, but these are options you acquire separately and integrate into your application.

We evaluated platform neutrality in terms of the run-time server environment and the breadth of wireless devices each product supports. The run-anywhere server components of the Java-based tools - M-1 Mobile Application Server, GoAnywhere Platform, iConverse's Mobile Studio and Interaction Server, and ViaFone's OneBridge Mobility Platform, - contributed to the tools' scores, while MobileQ's XMLEdge and Wireless Knowledge's Echo suffered somewhat. Because it has Windows and Unix versions, XMLEdge is more platform agnostic than Echo, which is Windows-centric.

The Internet-based Air2Web Mobile Internet Platform is highly neutral with respect to development and run-time platforms. For wireless application development, any computer with a browser for accessing the company's Web site and a text editor for creating XML will suffice. Mobile Internet Platform works with a range of wireless devices, including pure voice cell phones, SMS devices, WAP/WML phones, PDAs, iMode devices and J-phone devices.

Three products - iConverse's Mobile Studio and Interaction Server, AnyDevice's GoAnywhere Platform and ViaFone's OneBridge Mobility Platform - exhibited a high degree of platform neutrality with respect to handheld devices. Mobile Studio and Interaction Server and GoAnywhere Platform support WAP/WML phones, PDAs, two-way pagers, iMode devices, voice and a range of specific handheld models. However, OneBridge handles the greatest number of wireless devices, including WAP/WML phones, PDAs, two-way pagers, iMode devices, HTML browsers, clipped HTML, iMode (CHTML) browsers, the Nokia WAP browser, the Ericsson WAP browser, the Phone.com (OpenWave) WAP browser, the Neomar browser, the K-browser browser, VoiceXML and generic IVR.

Aligo's M-1 Mobile Application Server works with Palm PDAs, Handspring PDAs, WAP/WML phones, iMode phones, RIM pagers and Windows CE devices. MobileQ's XMLEdge recognizes 16 WAP/WML and HDML phones, six PDA models and four RIM pagers. Wireless Knowledge's Echo understands WAP/WML (for Phone.com and Nokia/Ericsson user interface variants), HDML non-Javascript HTML devices, HTML 4.2 browsers, CHTML and clipped HTML.

Installation and documentation

Six of the products installed quickly and easily via CD-ROM, while the seventh, the Internet-based Air2Web Mobile Internet Platform, needed no installation. You'll need to install a J2EE application server environment before loading iConverse's Interaction Server or ViaFone's OneBridge onto one of your servers. For AnyDevice's GoAnywhere Platform, you'll first need to install Oracle Version 8.1.6 or higher with the Oracle Obfuscation Toolkit.

Air2Web's documentation is online at the company's Web site. Aligo, iConverse, MobileQ and Wireless Knowledge provide electronic documentation with their products, and only AnyDevice and ViaFone supplied printed manuals. Whether online, electronic or printed, the documentation for all the products proved to be clear, straightforward and more than adequate for creating mobile applications.

Conclusion

When you embark on a wireless project to extend a business application the last mile, we strongly suggest you look first at iConverse's Mobile Studio and Interaction Server, AnyDevice's GoAnywhere Platform and ViaFone's OneBridge Mobility Platform. In particular, Mobile Studio's and Interaction Server's easy-to-use visual design environment, comprehensive support for wireless handheld devices and excellent scalability make it the tool of choice.