ESTIMATING THE 3G CONVERGENCE EFFECT ON THE FUTURE ROLE OF APPLICATION-LAYER MOBILE MIDDLEWARE SOLUTIONS Scenarios and strategies for business application providers in 3G and beyond

摘要

The emerging third generation of mobile communication (3G) does not only introduce improvements to current wireless transmission technologies. A significant dimension is given by (increasing) terminal capabilities. Mobile terminals are becoming portable, independent computing stations, paving the way for more native, standalone applications instead of current thin client, middleware based solutions. Application-level middleware might loose its role in these cases (e.g. middleware for back-end content such as WAP), and the current commercial focus on this area is endangered. This paper outlines propositions for players in the middleware based mobile application industry. In particular, we argue that business application providers will have to refine their strategy and should consider a set of dominance scenarios in order to estimate the evolution. In this approach, a set of concrete migration strategies will be introduced and an evaluation based on the scenarios will be provided.