Wireless trading in B2B markets: Concepts, architecture, and experiences

Abstract

With the tremendous advances in hand-held computing and communication capabilities, and the rapid proliferation of mobile devices, we are seeing a growth in mobile commerce in various consumer and business markets. In this paper, we present a novel architecture for end-to-end mobile commerce applications. We designed, implemented and deployed a system for mobile commerce connected to eMarketplaces. The system is currently undergoing trials under various configurations and in various countries. A number of end-to-end configurations for mobile commerce were experimented with, and the pros and cons were investigated. During field trials, which lasted many months, to our surprise, with WAP and HDML based clients, we were able see very good end-to-end performance for a mobile user trading at a B2B server located far away. In this paper, we also present the core issues around providing disconnected services by empowering the mobile clients with commerce functionality. Our approach is based on state-machine modeling and synchronization of objects manipulated on the client and server side.