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Developers already familiar with Microsoft tools and infrastructure are given a mobile development kick-start. The book contains the story of a fictious company, ACME Copier Inc and how their field service operation uses Pocket PC applications to improve customer satisfaction and productivity. The client- and server side components that make it all work are included with the book, which will enable the reader to reuse vital elements of the solution. The following software is available on the accompanying CD:  All the book samples in source code format Microsoft embedded Visual Tools 3.0 Microsoft SQL Server 2000 for Windows CE 1.1 Odyssey Software CEfusion 3.5 Free Developer Enterprise Edition - worth $500!! Odyssey Software ViaXML 1.1 Trial Edition Software 309 PictureBox Control 2.7 Odyssey Software OSIUtil 1.0 Microsoft SOAP Toolkit 2.0 Simon Fell's Pocket SOAP 0.9.1 Developer One Pocket ScreenSnap 5.0 (Full Version)Below we have put together parts of the book to give you an idea of the content: Foreword by Ted Clark Vice President, iPAQ
Mobile Solutions Compaq Computer Corporation. Introduction Chapter 1 - Examples, software from the CD, and resources you can use Chapter 2 - Extend the Enterprise Chapter 3 - Learning Pocket PC development from an
enterprise perspective Chapter 4 - Tools of the mobile trade Chapter 5 - Getting started and beyond Chapter 6 - Databases in motion Chapter 7 - Corporate infrastructure hits the road Chapter 8 - The web anywhere Chapter 9 - ACME Copier field service operation Chapter 10 - Inside ACME Copier's System Chapter 11 - Creating an installation Chapter 12 - .NE(x)T Steps Conclusion - Suggestions for beginning your first mobile solution
In their book, Andreas and Christian provide the necessary linkage between the popular program development environments and the explosive growth potential exhibited by the Pocket PC platform. The key to continued growth and productivity in the smart handheld device market is the development of the next wave of applications. Andreas and Christian take a unique approach by focusing on the enterprise and their view of the Pocket PC as a logical extension of the enterprise and the next access device. For clarity and ease of learning, the authors develop a series of applications focused upon a fictitious company. By following the examples, the reader becomes acquainted with the business processes and is walked through the code that brings those processes to the Pocket PC. As a result, this book becomes an important contribution to the literature supporting the move towards smart handheld devices and the growth of Pocket PC as an enabling operating environment. Enjoy! Ted Clark Vice President, iPAQ Mobile Solutions Compaq Computer Corporation 
Introduction "Something has changed. Have you noticed? You know how to build great solutions for your users: robust, scalable, user friendly, and maintainable enterprise applications; how to design a solid architecture with normalized databases, structured component models and even good-looking dialogs and web pages; you are the expert in satisfying the increasing demands of an ever-changing business. You are the system "carpenter" equipped with a solid toolbox of enterprise tools. You are the champ! But now your users have begun to express a completely new requirement that you cannot solve with the tools you used before. Some of them purchased small gadgets to take along on business trips and customer visits, at first just as replacements for their calendars. They even found out how to get their e-mail onto those devices. But they soon wanted more. They want to be able to perform their tasks and conduct business wherever they are. Business demands integration between process and mobility, a demand that in turn drives integration between mobility and systems. And system integration smells like a lot of development effort. This book is intended to assist you in responding to these new demands with real, working mobile solutions. Your current skills and experience are not only an asset, they are prerequisites in building solid enterprise mobile applications. You have the opportunity to become a new mobile solutions hero. And we will help you become one."
Chapter 1 - Examples, software from the CD, and resources you can use "We will try to make the samples in this book come alive as much as possible by having them evolve around a fictitious company and its business processes. Hopefully, you will be able to reuse our ideas from the solution design and development discussions here. We want to introduce to you a fictitious company called ACME Copier Inc. The ACME Copier samples can be found in Chapters 9 and 10. ACME Copier Inc. is a company that rents and leases out copier machines, faxes, and printers. Their customers are mid-size to large corporations and organizations. ACME Copier's main source of income is their field service operation. Service engineers visit customers regularly to perform scheduled maintenance. When an ACME business machine breaks down, the customer calls ACME's customer service, which in turn forwards a service order to the field service operation. Our samples will illustrate how ACME Copier improves the productivity within their field service operation."
Chapter 2 - Extend the Enterprise "In this chapter we're going to look at the forces in the marketplace, the changing environment in which businesses must do business, and we'll then focus on the potential this means for mobile solutions. Speed. Everything happens faster in a sphere where information is exchanged digitally and people who need the information are connected to it. Customers can find the right vendors faster, businesses can interact with each other faster, companies face swifter competition and can more quickly respond to new challenges in the marketplace. Mobile technologies contribute significantly to the speed of business in many ways. Companies can reach their customers with their proposal - regardless of where the customer is because mobile technologies are connecting and converging with the web. For corporate use, mobile solutions make it possible to get rid of unnecessary manual steps throughout business operations. Business processes meet mobility, and the system integration that occurs as a result extends existing back office systems to users wherever they are. Value: Entire ranges of administrative activities and manual processing of collected data is on the verge of extinction. Proposals for goods and services become possible from anywhere in the world."
Chapter 4 - Tools of the mobile trade "In this chapter we will look at:
You will readily recognize most of what you will see in the mobile development tools-not because you have built many mobile applications before, but because you are used to the Microsoft development tools. The most important part of a platform for a developer is the programming language. In the new tools that you will learn to know, you will find familiar tools like Visual Basic. Even if there are some differences in the implementation, the core of the tool is the same and all the code you have already written is reusable even in your new tools. You will actually leverage more on what you already know and have done than you will learn and reinvent. This is indeed the Microsoft theme for mobile development, in contrast to many other tool suppliers who expect you to believe that mobile by definition means a brand new set of skills. That is important if you set out to solve an urgent problem rather than wanting to leisurely explore new technology just for fun. In this chapter you will find that you can do both at the same time." This chapter contains lots of sample code!
Chapter 6 - Databases in motion This chapter contains lots of sample code! "In this chapter we will look at:
We'll also examine some of the industry discussions so that you can decide for yourself the best course of action for your company's or clients' mobile solution."
Chapter 7 - Corporate infrastructure hits the road This chapter contains lots of sample code! "In this chapter we'll discuss how to interact with servers in corporate systems, to achieve the highest performance and scalability possible for your mobile solutions. We'll particularly look at Odyssey Software's CEfusion offerings as a way to achieve these goals."
Chapter 8 - The web anywhere This chapter contains lots of sample code! "In this chapter we will examine how Pocket PCs can be used as an online thin client. One of the major advantages over other platforms is that it supports standard HTML. This means that that the Pocket PC can access most of the internet and the World Wide web. We will look at how we can build online web applications that support Pocket PCs, and other devices as well. We will go through the available options, from the simple approach of programmatically transforming content depending on client all the way to a multi-channel architecture."
Chapter 10 - Inside ACME Copier's System "In this chapter we will look behind the scenes in the system that we saw in action in the previous chapter. We will look at the most important parts of the implementation. The point here is to show you how the various techniques fall into place when compiled into a complete enterprise application. We will walk you through the sample code much in the same order as we looked at the system in action in the previous chapter, to make it easier for you to go back and see how it actually worked when used. We hope that this code will be useful for you when you start building your enterprise applications and that the context provided will make it easier for you to see how the different features fit together."
Chapter 11 - Creating an installation "In this chapter we will look at way that you can make your excellent applications available to your mobile users. We will start by looking at how you package you application into an installation package that can be distributed as a PC installer and also for Web distribution. We will look at how you can add a nice-looking icon to your eVB application, since it is not possible to add one natively. We will show you how to update the installation information (extension .inf) file with things that the application install wizard will not perform automatically."
Conclusion - Suggestions for beginning your first mobile solution "Isn't it great? You have seen that developing mobile solutions for the Pocket PC is something that you already knew how to do, and now hopefully you feel well prepared to do it. You are now equipped to take on your first project, and try out your new knowledge. You are now ready to start finding your first Pocket PC project and the magic rule when working with new technology is to iterate. Below you will find some simple steps you can follow. You should remember to create a little, try a little, and sell a little. The key in iteration is to embrace the feedback that you get, go back and make changes, and then get more feedback. Just continue on the paths that deliver results. This is where you find success." |
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