One might think that the software industry is performing very well because it is armed with object-oriented approaches, Web services, Java and NET technologies, and so forth. Unfortunately, this is not true.

There may be something wrong with the way we write programs. The process has not changed much during the past twenty years, except that applications and tools are getting bigger. Yet are they better and more scalable? Do they require any common sense? Can they be reused in different circumstances?

If these things were true, I do not think we would be rewriting the address book, schedule, order, and inventory applications over and over again instead of moving to new, untouched tasks. We would be able to accumulate the professional knowledge gained by millions of knowledge workers (everyone who manages information flow on a daily basis) instead of routinely losing it, as we do today. We would also not be facing the current IT crisis.

We could even have had more precise and direct access to the market's supply and demand, which would have reduced the glaring inefficiencies of the software marketplace of the 1990s. A big change is required to return investors' confidence to IT, and, hopefully, the change is coming.

Yes, technology can help economic stability if applied with precision. Sometimes I wonder why big companies are constantly growing bigger while small ones tend to disappear.

This chapter is about existing and upcoming client–server paradigms in communications, the distribution of computing power, and effective programming with reusable code that can be run on both sides of the client–server pair.

The past decade of client–server development turned to the server part of this happily married couple. The biggest software giants are in a hurry to translate desktop applications into Web services leased or sold on a pay-per-use basis.

This work, begun several years ago, was based on several assumptions:

1. Client networks will improve/upgrade faster and more cheaply than client computers.

2. HTTP-based Web technology will be able to provide all or most of the requested services.

3. Centralized data and services will benefit clients and service providers.

Unfortunately, not all of these assumptions happen to be true.

1. Computers and PDAs are much more capable and cheap today than they were several years ago, whereas digital subscriber line (DSL) and cable modems are still the same price, with no miracles to show for it.

2. One of the biggest requests for Internet services, streaming data, requires protocols other than HTTP and lies outside of Web technology. (This is just one example; applications with asynchronous natures are also not comfortable with HTTP limitations.)

3. Groups of clients are unhappy with the centralized service concept. For security reasons, they prefer peer-to-peer or similar communications.

4. […]

Ontology is a controlled, hierarchical vocabulary for describing a knowledge system or knowledge-handling methods.

This chapter is an introduction to a development paradigm in which software and knowledge engineering are integrated. As always happens on the other side of an economic crisis, a new set of skills will be required. A growing number of developers will actively use the knowledge technologies reviewed in this chapter.

The chapter starts by talking about fundamental standards that currently bridge ontology and engineering: the Resource Description Framework (RDF), the Semantic Web language DAML+OIL (DARPA Agent Markup Language + Ontology Inference Layer), Topic Maps concepts, and their XML Topic Maps (XTM) standard knowledge exchange format.

We'll continue with a brief overview of data-mining methods with coming Java support and eventually discuss the challenging topic of generic knowledge, not just knowledge of a specific business domain, expressed in natural language. The final part of the chapter describes OpenCyc, probably the most exciting knowledge instrument today, and provides examples of using the CycL language and OpenCyc engine in distributed knowledge systems.

I hope this chapter does not take you, my reader, by surprise. Integration-ready systems and collaborative engineering need and help create knowledge technologies, which create a very healthy cycle.

A customer with a computer and computer skills is still the main target for computerized services today.

Even when searching Google.com for a specific topic, you need to know the specific terms of the industry this topic belongs to.

This chapter introduces Wireless Markup Language (WML) and provides examples of programming wireless applications using presentation factories.

Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) devices include WML browsers that can display some content described in WML and WMLScript, which is part of the WAP specification. WMLScript can be used to add programming support to the client. It is similar to JavaScript and can be used in a similar manner. You can use WMLScript to validate user input, but most importantly, you can use it to generate messages and dialogs locally, so error messages and confirmations can be viewed faster.

It is also possible to access facilities of the user agent; for example, WMLScript allows the programmer to make phone calls, access the SIM (subscriber identity module) card, or configure the user agent after it has been deployed. (Keep in mind that data and voice are separate.)

Memory and CPU resources are limited and often prohibit the use of WMLScript, although WMLScript may be necessary to program proprietary telephony features for specific devices. For example, some devices allow your program to:

• Send DTMF (Dual Tone Multi-Frequency. The technical term describing Touch Tone dialing with combination of two tones, one low frequency and one high frequency.) tones

• Modify the device's phone book

• Use the phone book to start voice call or reject a call

Note that such programs would hardly work for a variety of models. The compatibility problem is one of the serious problems WAP developers face.

This chapter is a brief overview of the basic principles and standards driving the world of wireless applications.

Unmatched opportunities in the mobile and wireless areas are attracting the attention of business and development. Wireless markets, including personal area networks (WPAN), local area networks (WLAN), and wideband local-area networks (WWLAN), have an estimated value today of several billion dollars according to the Gartner Group (http://www.gartner.com/5 about/pressreleases/pr11mar2003a.jsp)

According to Gartner, increasing focus on teleworking and corporate mobility to improve enterprise performance, and trends such as the move toward the real-time enterprise, will not merely exploit mobility but will demand it. At the same time, the relentless push by vendors, virtually giving away wireless capabilities with significant price/performance improvements, is fueling demand for wireless technology in the corporate marketplace. United States federal regulators are expanding the radio spectrum for wireless internet users to help bring broadband connections to rural areas.

The number of wireless devices on the Internet is growing fast. The stock of IP addresses is now almost exhausted, so it is about time to extend the Internet with Internet 2, which replaces the current IPv4 protocol with the latest IPv6 protocol and drastically increases Internet capacity and improves Internet security.

A great competition for multiple markets, running different wireless technologies, has just begun. The winners will be those wireless Internet service providers (WISPs) and wireless application service providers (WASPs) that can offer connection and content services and optimize development solutions with a unified approach across multiple client devices.

Who Should Read This Book?

Integration-Ready Architecture and Design strives for a union of theory and practice. Teaching the latest wired and wireless software technologies, the book is probably the first entry into “the next big thing,” a new world of integrated knowledge and software engineering. Written by a software architect and experienced trainer, this book is for:

• Software architects, designers, and developers

• Internet and wireless service providers

• IT managers and other IT professionals, as well as amateurs

• Subject matter experts who will directly participate in a new development process of integrated software and knowledge engineering

• Students and educators, who will find up-to-date materials for the following courses:

1. Software Architecture,

2. Software Engineering,

3. Programming Concepts,

4. Information Technologies,

5. Smart Card and JavaCard Technologies,

6. Wireless Technologies,

7. J2ME and Wireless Messaging,

8. XML Technologies,

9. Speech Technologies,

10. Java Language and Technology,

11. C# and Net Technology,

12. Integration Technologies,

13. Business Communications and Collaborative Engineering,

14. Web Technologies,

15. Introduction of Ontology, and

16. Integrated Software and Knowledge Engineering (introduced in the book)

• Peers: students, instructors, consultants, and corporate team players who might start using a peer-to-peer educational tool offered in the book as their entrance to the distributed knowledge marketplace

• All of the above who want to know how things work, should work, and will work in the IT world.

Though derived from SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language), Extensible Markup Language (XML) [1] quickly outgrew its initial purpose of enabling large-scale electronic publishing and became the main road of data exchange over the Internet and elsewhere. XML is simple and flexible. These qualities have made XML the perfect instrument for creating new languages in many areas.

For example, HTML is currently the most common language used to create Web pages according to orthodox Web technology, in which the client program is a Web (HTML) browser. However, HTML has its limitations: HTML tags are predefined and cannot be changed or extended.

XML EXTENDS THE WEB AND BUILDS A PLAYGROUND FOR ITS CHILDREN

XML, on the other hand, allows us to create our own elements, attributes, and structures to describe any kind of data. With such flexibility, XML provides the ideal solution for producing new languages to express the ever-increasing complexity of data exchange and other needs.

WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) is, in a way, a child of web technology; but WAP has slightly different requirements, which are not covered by HTML tags. A member of the XML family, WML (Wireless Markup Language) provides the necessary keywords to satisfy these requirements.

XML DESCRIBES BUSINESS RULES AND DATA STRUCTURES; XSLT AND X PATH DESCRIBE THEIR TRANSFORMATIONS

XML is becoming the main tuning tool to describe business rules, data structures, and their transformations.

Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) [2] is another member of the same big family of languages.

One of the challenges programmers face every day is creating reusable components with a minimum of overhead.

We will consider an example of a service component and a service container, as well as their design and code evolution from a specific to a very flexible solution.

This chapter starts with a single Java class, which then evolves into a visual component. Then, a service container takes the central place on the stage. The chapter teaches how to build a container that is reusable in a Java applet or an application (desktop) program. It provides a solution to one of the most difficult problems: how to make the service container extensible and ready for more services, including those unknown at this time.

This very first example demonstrates one of Java code's benefits. Imagine a small device, such as a wristwatch, with a built-in Java chip. A single text line in the middle of this small screen usually displays the current time. With wireless Internet connection we will enable this device to display weather, stock, traffic, news from friends and family, community or business information (delivered via Short Message Service), and turn it into a “news watch.” Figure 3.1 illustrates this device that can be viewed as an extended wireless pager or scaled down wireless messenger described in the Chapter 11 (J2ME).

DISTRIBUTED PROCESSING AND THE FLAT WORLD OF XML

I think there is a connection between these two topics. Let me explain what I mean.

XML is becoming the dominant messaging body for wired and wireless communications. We are going down to the flat world of XML from the hills of rich object structures.

The need for object brokers, serialization mechanisms, and intermediate translators between communication parties is decreasing more and more. Does that mean we have been getting rid of objects all along? Impossible! We still need formatted data. So, how would we send and understand unknown structured objects?

We probably shouldn't. We shouldn't send MS Excel or PDF files from a sender to a recipient. We shouldn't send service objects either. We might not need to continue collecting document handlers and service utilities at our machines. We might not need to increase the size of a hard drive ten times every two years.

What can we do instead? Here, distribution processing comes into play. Today, we live in a disconnected world where most of your computing happens on your computer. If a collection of software products on your PC does not include, for example, Adobe Acrobat Reader the system will complain that it has no program to open this file.

In the connected world, things will be different. Your machine will always be on the Internet, with millions of specialized services that are ready to help you.

In the previous chapter, we reviewed the value chain and business models, both key components to any industry analysis. In this section we will look at some of the challenges being faced by the wireless industry – in both the business and technology realms. This chapter focuses on the business issues and the next chapter will address some of the challenges in the technology arena. Although many industries have some common idiosyncrasies, the wireless industry is unique and sometimes issues and problems are specific to a geography or nation. For instance, spectrum (which we will discuss later) is squarely a US issue while their counterparts in Japan do not encounter such problems and 3G spectrum auctions are driving many carriers out of business in Europe. While Europe and Japanese markets are approaching saturation in the consumer market, the US market is largely untapped. On the other hand, China (which is the biggest wireless market in the world) has its own challenges as it tries to define itself amidst government control. The business issues and challenges we are going to be discussing in this chapter are as follows:

1. hyping

2. transition from flat rate to à la carte billing models

3. mobile SPAM

4. WLAN business

5. interoperability

6. churn and increasing the ARPU

7. 3G auctions and spectrum

8. consolidation

9. market saturation and search for new markets

10. privacy

11. security

12. position location rollout and privacy

13. mobile fraud.

Some of these issues are geography-specific while others apply to the industry as a whole. We will try to give examples wherever possible to illustrate our points.

The significance of space and place

Many contemporary writers have emphasized the fundamental role of the space–place distinction in contemporary life and globalization. For example, Giddens (1990) writes that in traditional societies, space and place largely coincided since social interactions occurred under conditions of ‘presence’. In contemporary society, with increasing interactions between ‘absent’ others, space is separated from place, and activities are coordinated without necessary reference to the particularities of place. The experience of the ‘here’ and ‘now’ is tied to and contingent on actors and actions at a distance. Such discussions have helped to refocus the political role on the ‘local’ and to emphasize the tensions that arise in the interplay between the local and the global.

Space and place serve as powerful metaphors to understand the global and the local, respectively, and the tensions that arise when social practices play out simultaneously in the global and the local. Schultze and Boland (2000) describe place in terms of its association with the sense of boundedness, localness and particularity, as contrasted to space and its sense of universal, generalizable and the abstract. The distinction between place and space can be conceptualized with respect to the meanings that people ascribe to locations – physical or imagined. Spaces serve as containers or receptacles for places whose meanings are shaped by what one does in them.

GSW: a knowledge perspective

This chapter introduces the importance of taking a knowledge perspective to understand the process of growth of a GSA. Software development in general is an example of knowledge-intensive work. When taken in the context of global separation, the knowledge intensity is magnified many times over. In addition to domain-specific product knowledge, it requires a deep understanding of the multiple local contexts involved and the ongoing and changing development requirements. Many of these requirements remain undocumented and tacitly held by individuals and groups.

The significance of the knowledge transfer process can be analysed at multiple levels: institutions, project teams and individuals. Institutional reflexivity, which Giddens (1990) has described to be a defining feature of globalization, is particularly emphasized in knowledge-intensive software development work. Continuously and reflexively, firms must monitor new knowledge about technologies, organizations and markets. They must make changes in their own processes as the situation demands. The need for continuous reflexive action is significant because of the speed at which new knowledge about software is being generated and the tremendous interconnectivity between global systems (including electronic) that facilitates the spread of new knowledge from one part of the world to others.

The knowledge perspective is equally significant at the level of project teams and the individuals in the teams. Most software development firms comprise multiple teams working with different clients, engaging in different technologies and serving various markets and products.

Network and access technologies

In Chapter 6 we discussed various cellular systems around the world and what kind of evolution strategies carriers are likely to be adopting in the next few years. In this chapter we will discuss the key network and access technologies and software technologies impacting on the wireless world. We will first take a look at the wireless network architecture and then discuss various wireless WAN, LAN and PAN technologies. This discussion is presented to make the reader familiar with the spectrum of wireless technologies. For a more comprehensive discussion, please refer to the References, where we have listed some useful texts for detailed technological discussions.

Position location

In 1996, the FCC in the USA, via a series of orders, had mandated all wireless carriers to provide automatic location identification (ALI) as part of phase II E911 (Enhanced 911 for emergency services), with the implementation starting on 1 October 2001. In the past four years or so, the FCC has adjusted the requirements to better suit the reality of position-location solutions. These solutions can be broadly divided into two main categories: network based and handset based. Techniques such as Angle of Arrival (AOA), Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA), and MultiPath Fingerprinting (MPF) are the commonly used network-based solutions, while GPS or network-assisted GPS are the primary handset-based solutions. Both solutions have their advantages and disadvantages, short-term and long-term.