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Make Mine a Mobile
Mobile devices are beginning to deliver on the "information at your fingertips" promise, and Microsoft's .NET Compact Framework offers a unified approach to multiple devices.
by Thomas Murphy

For This Solution: .NET Compact Framework, C#, VB.NET, Mobile Information Toolkit

It generally takes ten years for products to go from conception and the research phases to real market availability. When Alan Kay was a graduate student more than thirty years ago, he envisioned the Dynabook, a portable device with a graphic screen you could use to assemble and navigate content easily (see Resources). The way you could assemble content was critical to the vision because you needed to have the ability to create new arguments and methods of learning, not just have the ability to consume information. Kay had such a strong influence on Apple, the company hired him, and several others from his ground breaking Xerox PARC team, to bring this vision to life. Today, much of this vision has been accomplished, and as we approach the ten-year anniversary of the unveiling of Apple's Newton hand-held computer, mobile devices are truly coming into their own. The.NET Compact Framework and tools that are included in the Visual Studio .NET update, due later this year, provide one of the key new pieces of functionality to further extend this vision. Although they don't completely realize Kay's vision, these tools will make the Pocket PC a viable part of the corporate computing infrastructure.

The Pocket PC platform has been growing rapidly in market share over the last three years because it's brought color, improved performance, and additional memory to market ahead of the competition. It's also provided programming integration to standard business tools such as Outlook and Office. However, developing custom applications for these devices has lagged behind typical client platform tools because it requires a solid understanding of C++ and the Windows' APIs. Early attempts to enable business developers to target the device though Visual Basic were hampered by bugs and poor performance.

Pocket PC hardware vendors began to offer various Java runtime options, seeking to provide the growing number of Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) developers with a common platform. At the same time, the majority of corporate development has focused on thin-client solutions. In this article, I'll explore the options Microsoft presents with its various tools for mobile applications and explain how these devices will move from pocket organizers to dynamic business tools.

Put the Best Interface Forward
When you consider creating a mobile application, you must first decide whether you'll use the smart- or thin-client approach. Smart clients are traditional, rich, GUI applications, which, unlike traditional client/server applications, you can deploy from Internet servers. They're also designed to intelligently use distributed programming capabilities. Microsoft provides ASP.NET mobile controls to support thin clients. This library of controls supports multiple devices so developers can create a single user interface design that will render correctly on Pocket PCs, or Wireless Markup Language (WML) and cHTML phones. This control set is similar to the ASP.NET control library, so developers trained in ASP can make a smooth transition.

This solution is limited because the device must be connected to the Internet. However, if you're targeting devices used solely on a campus network though 802.11b wireless networking, it's an excellent option. It's also the only way to build applications using .NET that support non-Microsoft devices such as Palm Pilots. ASP.NET replaces the Mobile Internet Toolkit, which provided similar device translation capabilities. Also, as 802.11b access points become more widely available and carriers deploy third-generation mobile phone technology, the viability of this approach will increase. Unfortunately, widespread 802.11b availability is still three to five years away.