Pocket PC Development in the Enterprise: Mobile Solutions with Visual Basic and .NET

About

Features

Description

Developments in mobile technology and the wireless internet are converging to offer new opportunities for improving business processes and creating important new products and services. Pocket PC Development in the Enterprise is the first book to explain how to exploit these trends by developing mobile enterprise solutions based on Microsoft's increasingly popular Pocket PC platform.

The authors discuss the business implications of the mobility boom before going on to provide the method, the code, and the tools for the reader to develop their own mobile solutions. To aid understanding, the book uses the story of a fictitious company, ACME Copier Inc, illustrating how their field service operation improves customer satisfaction and productivity via Pocket PC applications. The client- and server-side components that make it all work are included with the book, enabling the reader to reuse vital elements of the solution.

Pocket PC Development in the Enterprise includes these invaluable features to help new developers hit the ground running:

• An overview of the business impact of mobile solutions;
• A tried and tested Pocket PC application development method;
• An effective mobile system architecture design blueprint;
• A set of practical, real-world illustrations;
• A wealth of sample code walkthroughs;
• A CD featuring all the code plus a host of essential Pocket PC developer tools.

CD contents include:

• FULL LICENSED VERSION of Odyssey Software CEfusion 3.5 Developer Enterprise Edition
• All the book samples in source code format
• Microsoft eMbedded Visual Tools 3.0
• Microsoft SQL Server 2000 for Windows CE 1.1 Trial Edition
• Microsoft SOAP Toolkit 2.0
• Microsoft Reader 1.5
• Read in Microsoft Reader add-in for Microsoft Word 1.0
• Developer One Pocket ScreenSnap 5.0 (Full Version)
• Odyssey Software ViaXML 1.1 Trial Edition
• Odyssey Software OSIUtil 1.0
• Software 309 PictureBox Control 2.7
• Ezos EzWAP 2.0 Evaluation
• Larry Banks' Virtual CE
• Simon Fell's Pocket SOAP 0.9.1

Sample Content

Table of Contents

Chapters  Chapter 1  Extending the Enterprise  Speed. Everything happens faster in a sphere where everything is going digital and connected. Customers can find the right offers faster, businesses can interact with each other faster; companies face a quicker competition and can respond to new threats faster.  Mobile technologies add tremendous significance to the aspect of business speed in many ways. Companies can reach their customers with their offer 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 the operations. Business processes meet mobility and the system integration that occurs as a result extend existing back office systems to wherever the users are.  Value. Entire ranges of administrative activities and manual processing of collected data is on the verge of distinction. Marketplace offers become available from anywhere. Chapter 2  Tools of Mobile Trade  Enterprise developers can leverage most of their current Microsoft technologies skill set when going mobile. Pocket PC development relies on familiar tools and languages. This chapter shows how to use eMbedded Visual Tools in general and eMbedded Visual Basic in particular. Chapter 3  Getting Started and Beyond  The chapter walks the reader through core elements of eMbedded Visual Basic, and even reveals some hidden tricks that give Pocket PC applications that extra twist. The first part covers the basic functionality built into the tools like form navigation, building a wizard, included controls, third-party controls and even base system controls. In the second we will cover some often useful tricks when building enterprise applications for Pocket PC like creating a splash screen, programming the POOM, launching applications and much more. Chapter 4 Databases in Motion  The Pocket PC strikes a mobile application sweet spot. The Pocket PC inherently supports both connected and disconnected scenarios better than any other mobile device. From an Enterprise perspective, local data store capabilities need to be implemented by solid Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) technologies. Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Windows® CE Edition enters the scene in this chapter. A walkthrough of the new mobile database engine and the different connectivity options Remote Data Access and Merge Replication is included in this chapter. Chapter 5 Corporate Infrastructure Hits the Road  Mobile solutions are rarely green field. The more you can reuse existing corporate infrastructure, the faster you can deliver the right solution. Leverage existing corporate infrastructure and hit the ground running. This chapter discusses in detail how to reach COM components, message queues, databases, file servers from Pocket PC using eMbedded Visual Basic and Odyssey Software CEfusion. Chapter 6  The Web Anywhere  This chapter examines 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. It means that it can access most of the Internet, the World Wide Web (WWW). The reader is taught how to build online Web applications that support Pocket PCs, and other devices as well. The chapter explains the available options; from the simple approach of programmatically transforming content depending on client all the way to a multi-channel architecture.  Chapter 7  ACME Copier Field Service Operation  Meet the people at ACME Copier and discover how they have extended their processes to anywhere. The ACME Copier is a relevant example of how any company could make their workforce more productive when on the move. The sample will hopefully inspire the reader to see how one can take advantage of new technology in everyday

Preface

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.

The purpose of this book

The purpose of this book is to help you hit the ground running in building mobile solutions for your business today, based on the Windows for Pocket PC platform, and leveraging your existing enterprise design and developer skills. The book contains a significant amount of business-oriented content, spanning business case development, mobile trends, software development methodology, and mobile architecture, plus lots of sample code.

This book intentionally mixes the business and developer aspects of mobile development. We chose not to split the material into two separate } Business demands integration between process and mobility, a demand that in turn drives integration between mobility and systems. ~pocket pc the best device platform for the enterprise parts because of our conviction that today’s and tomorrow’s heroes have to understand both.

You will be able to take advantage of your experience in building scalable architectures with the Microsoft platform as a foundation. The Pocket PC is the best choice, not just as a catchy marketing phrase; it’s also a core element of the Microsoft platform. Core technologies, tools, and technologies that you already know are the same — from the server and all the way out to the Pocket PC device itself.

Based on our experiences, we have come to regard the Microsoft platform as a basis for creating state-of-the-art solutions for enterprise business problems.

Why we wrote this book

Mobile solutions will be a natural ingredient in most enterprise business operations. The developer efforts required to make this prediction happen are significant. Critical focus areas include optimization of skill and IT reuse as well as mobile technologies training.

During the fall of 2000, we looked around for a book about developing mobile solutions for enterprise companies aimed at experienced developers. We wanted to get a head start in this race. We did not find that book. During a late night e-mail exchange between us, a week before Christmas of 2000, we decided to write it ourselves.

The core idea for the book is to bring the good news to the millions of Visual Basic developers that they only need to make a small effort to be able to create mobile solutions — much in the same way and with the same tools that they already know. Visual Basic developers will be instrumental in extending existing systems, those that they have already developed, to be available anywhere — on a Pocket PC. In the mobile marketplace, some players have pushed the idea that mobile solutions are something isolated and "new," but as the web is now used as an extension of existing business models and systems, so will mobile solutions. If you want to take part in the wave of mobile development, this book is for you!

Pocket PC — the best device platform for the enterprise

We possess between us 25 years of experience in enterprise system development. During these years we have worked with everything from coding to building and testing solid architectures.

If there is anything that we have learned during these years, it’s the importance of system and even application integration. In most enterprise projects, the majority of effort surrounds integration. Integration is mainly about extending systems and most often it is really about extending business processes. Mobile solutions extend business processes to be available to the workforce and other participants in business functions the market — anywhere. It means that the employees can access and even manipulate core business information just when they need it the most — immediately.

We are convinced that the Pocket PC is a premier platform to enable enterprise business solutions to be available anywhere. We intend to assist you in getting started with "business mobilization." During the last couple of years we have realized that the Pocket PCs (preceded by the earlier generation called Palm-size PCs) are useful for far more than organizing contacts, appointments, and e-mail. Pocket PCs consolidate technologies that enable you to take the knowledge and power in your business applications, and then use it wherever your employees are.

The Pocket PC has the capability to extend both business processes and enterprise applications to be available, literally, from the mobile employees’ hands.

Who should use this book

So, who do we think that you are? We believe that you are an IT professional who has performed any of a number of roles, from system designer, to IT manager and decision maker, to manager or member of development teams, either in or for corporate environments. You probably have worked with most of the following tools and technologies from Microsoft:

• Windows (both on server and client)
• Transaction Server and/or Component Services (COM+)
• SQL Server
• Visual Studio (most importantly Visual Basic)
• Component Object Model (COM/DCOM)
• ActiveX Data Objects (ADO)
• Internet Information Server (IIS)
• ActiveX Server Pages (ASP)

We are convinced that the Pocket PC is a premier platform to enable enterprise business solutions to be available anywhere. We intend to assist you in getting started with ‘business mobilization.’~who we are And also some general methodology and technologies:

• Internet Technologies (HTTP, HTML, CSS, etc)
• Extensible Markup Language (XML)
• Unified Modeling Language (UML)

You probably work for one or with several large corporations using a number of applications built on the Microsoft platform. We hope that you like structured ways of approaching a problem and that your main focus is to support and even drive the business to which you provide IT solutions. And we assume, since you purchased this book, that you are actually planning to design and/or build a mobile solution yourself soon.

You are likely to have an interest in Pocket PCs, and probably even have a Pocket PC yourself. Having a Pocket PC device will help you in trying out the samples in this book. And it will also help you to understand the situation for your users. You will then be familiar with the different aspects of the smaller screen, stylus-based input, and limited memory.

So that’s who we address this book to — generally anyone interested in developing solutions for the Pocket PC, for use in an enterprise environment. This book is for you.

Who we are

Some call us mad men. Others call us highly regarded and sought after senior consultants in the domains of corporate mobile solutions. In an industry where it seems to be fashionable to stay away from the developer craftsmanship, we regard ourselves as proud developers. We both work at the Swedish practice of Cap Gemini Ernst & Young and are both moonlighting as contributing writers at PocketPC.com (found at http://www.pocketpc.com).

I (Christian Forsberg) have been designing and implementing enterprise solutions based on Microsoft technologies for more than 15 years. I started programming in 1977 and am still a proud developer, now for the Pocket PC. I have worked with everything from game programming to field service support on Pocket PC and feel confident that the message of this book really works in real-life situations. I’m also a proud Pocket PC owner who does much of my e-mailing, e-book reading, internet browsing, and even writing on it. Some parts of this book are written on my Pocket PC. My non-Pocket PC life is spent with my love and wife, Hanna, and our children, Ludwig, Franz, Max, and Linus.

I (Andreas Sjöström) have more than 10 years of experience in system architecture design and software development. I enthusiastically began pro introductiongramming a Sinclair ZX81 back in 1982. When I was 13, I wrote an essay about happiness. The essay was about BASIC-programming. Much as this book, really! I specialize in mobile database development and back office integration. I live in Mullsjö, Sweden, together with my lovely wife Marie, and our two children, Alexander and Rebecka. I am, along with my family, active in the local church and lead a children’s choir called Joysound.

You can visit us at the web site http://www.businessanyplace.net or send us e-mail at christian.forsberg@pocketpcwriter.com and andreas.sjostrom@pocketpcwriter.com.

Talk with us!

In closing, we’d like to let you know that Chapter 1 provides many resources for you, including an URL for a web site where you can communicate with us, ask us questions, and find updates for the information and code we’ve supplied here. We hope to hear from you, and look forward to working together with you in this exciting arena.

We’re glad to be on your team. Well, now that we’ve all been introduced it’s time to get to work.

Andreas Sjöström Christian Forsberg

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