NWC04_15_CP2pg53_63 4/6/2004 3:23 PM Page 53 MAKING THE SMART CHOICE WE DEVISED THREE END-USER PROFILES AND SENT AN RFI TO THE TOP WIRELESS PLATFORM VENDORS. HERE ARE OUR PICKS, TAILORED TO SPECIFIC BUSINESS REQUIREMENTS BY PETER RYSAVY To learn more about what the major players There are features in common to all these platforms, have to offer, we defined three usage scenarios as well as capabilities that make each unique. And each representative of enterprise adoption: phone- has strengths and weaknesses, though we are hard- centric, e-mail-centric and general-purpose mobile READER POLL data-centric. Details on our three scenarios are provided in “Scenario: Picking a Platform” on page 56. How interested are you in using these strategies to adopt wireless mobile applications? We sent Microsoft, PalmSource, Research in Motion (RIM) and Symbian an RFI, asking each to provide Purchase complete solution from application vendor details on development environments; development Purchase complete solution tool vendors; available applications; messaging and e- from middleware provider mail support; browser capabilities; available devices; Develop application using Microsoft tools multitasking capabilities; Java capabilities; VPN sup- Develop application using port; communication capabilities, including wireless microbrowser approach and wireline; and supported communication protocols. Develop application using We can summarize the results in a word: impressive. other approaches Develop application in Java The number of features packed into these gadgets is using J2ME and MIDP mind-boggling. If we didn’t know we were talking Develop application in Java about handheld devices, we’d have thought we were using Personal Profile reading descriptions of much larger systems. We’ve Develop application in native C++ for mobile platform seen this before: Several years ago, PDAs were little 05671234 more than standalone organizers. Now they’re general- Not Very purpose computers with built in wireless networking. interested interested Average response shown Source: NETWORK COMPUTING E-Mail Poll, 478 respondents www.nwc.com I 4.15.2004 I NETWORK COMPUTING 53 NWC04_15_CP2pg53_63 4/6/2004 3:23 PM Page 56 pressed to identify glaring flaws in any of them. Your or PDAs. It’s unlikely that a combo phone-PDA will per- decision about which one to use is less likely to be driv- form as well as a single-purpose device. Each has a en by individual technical merits and more by the apps unique user interface and approaches to security differ. you wish to run and your existing back-end systems. RIM has its own end-to-end security model, while PalmSource and Symbian use third-party VPNs and The Same, but Different Microsoft includes PPTP and L2TP/IPsec VPN protocols. Before we examine the products in depth, it’s worth Although all platforms support Java, Symbian also summarizing the commonalities and differences. Each offers MIDP 2.0 and Personal Java 1.1.1a. And, not sur- platform has packed a tremendous amount of capability prisingly, Microsoft has the strongest support for .Net into a very small footprint, and each constitutes a full- on its platforms, though third-party tools are available blown OS environment with features such as multitask- for others if you’re interested in Microsoft program- ing, memory management and complete tools for third- ming approaches—OLE, .Net and Visual Basic. How party application development. Each platform offers browsers format and render complex pages can vary, security, mainly through VPNs, and each supports the meaning that one device may be much more usable for most common wireless networks, such as IrDA and Blue- some content than its rivals. tooth in the personal area and CDMA2000 1X GSM/ Another differentiator is the wireless networks sup- GPRS in the wide area. Many also support Wi-Fi. All have ported. The trend has been for PDAs to support Wi-Fi or built-in organizer capabilities, and all support market- cellular and for smartphones to support cellular, but more leading messaging systems, such as SMS and MMS. Each and more smartphones are supporting Wi-Fi as well. platform works with dominant e-mail systems, such as As for purchasing trends, in our poll we asked read- Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes and Internet protocols ers to rate how strongly they consider each platform for like IMAP and POP3. All have competent WML (Wireless enterprise apps. On a scale of 1 to 7, the weighted aver- Markup Language) and HTML browsers, and all are capa- ages for all platforms came back with values from 3 to ble of TCP/IP networking. Finally, major software ven- 5—there were no strong winners or losers. From most dors such as IBM and Oracle are extending their enter- to least strongly considered, the choices are: Microsoft prise apps to each of these platforms. Pocket PC, Palm OS, RIM Blackberry, Linux, Microsoft What differentiates the platforms, and sometimes SmartPhone and Symbian. Most readers prefer PDAs. products within a family, is their emphasis on phones As for capabilities enterprises deem most impor- SCENARIO: PICKING A PLATFORM We defined wireless mobile platforms wireless for voice communications. we asked for a list of devices on the as data-capable mobile devices oper- » General-purpose mobile data. that use each platform, broken ating over wireless networks—smart- These employees seek maximum down by device vendor. Wphones; PDAs with phone capabili- flexibility for data applications. They As for OSs, we asked about ties; PDAs connected to mobile need e-mail, messaging, browsing, multitasking, and we queried the phones using IR, Bluetooth or cable, database access, file transfer and vendors on Java: Which versions for example; and PDAs with WLAN VPN capabilities. They will use sepa- are supported, and if Jave is not capabilities. We excluded notebooks. rate mobile phones for voice, and supported, what’s the alternative? Vendors were asked to tailor may even use mobile phones as Security is always key, so we asked their responses to fit one of three modems for their devices. for specifics on VPN support. usage scenarios that reflect typical To choose the best platform for Since these devices are all about enterprise needs: each scenario, we asked vendors to staying connected, we asked for a » Phone-centric. These users employ list available development environ- list of wireless networking technolo- wireless mainly for voice communi- ments—C++, Java or browser-based, gies supported, including CDMA, cations. They have strong opinions for example—as well as development GPRS/EDGE, UMTS/WCDMA, Wi-Fi, about the ergonomic aspects of their tools appropriate for the platform. IR and Bluetooth, as well as on-board devices, and want their phone plat- We also asked how many business- wireline communication technolo- forms to synchronize with PIM appli- related applications and types of gies, including USB, serial and Ether- cations. They occasionally use their messaging, including SMS, IM and net. And, we asked which communi- mobile devices to check e-mail, MMS, are supported, both natively cations protocols—TCP/IP, IPv6, send/receive text or instant mes- and by third parties. For the Web- HTTP, POP, IMAP, FTP, SSL, TLS, tel- sages, and browse Web pages, but masters out there, we enquired net, IPsec, PPTP, L2TP—are support- these activities are secondary. about browser capabilities and ed natively and by third parties. » E-mail-centric. These staffers are markup languages supported. Finally, we let the vendors list primarily interested in sending and Because some enterprise users other benefits their platforms offer receiving mail. They also may use have strong hardware preferences, for enterprise deployments. 56 NETWORK COMPUTING I 4.15.2004 I www.nwc.com NWC04_15_CP2pg53_63 4/6/2004 3:23 PM Page 58 tant, the feature that stands far above any other is General-Purpose Mobile Data Choice: Tie, Microsoft strong security. and PalmSource For general-purpose mobile data, Palm- Source has produced the best phone PDA ever with its Preferred Choices Treo 600, which can leverage the huge installed base of The market is simply too immature to declare a single Palm applications. This larger base makes it more likely winner, and it will be years before any of these platforms that there is an off-the-shelf application to address your is a commodity item. In addition, while we consider all needs. Microsoft, however has the most powerful and the platforms capable, in the long term we don’t see the flexible operating environment with its Windows Mobile market supporting more than two or three at most. Refer OS, and strong support in enterprises, especially to our features charts for a comparison of capabilities, Microsoft-centric ones. The Microsoft OS also has and click over to ID# 1507rd1 for full vendor responses stronger networking capabilities. Palm and Microsoft to our RFI, including detailed lists of development-tool have moved their PDA battle to the mobile telephone vendors, protocols and devices supported. market, where they now must contend with Symbian. We’ve named our preferred choice in each of the three usage scenarios. And we’ve provided our detailed The Nitty Gritty analysis of these platforms (in alphabetical order). Mean- Linux The one platform we did not review in detail— while, mobile workers are enjoying an unprecedented due to its market immaturity—is Linux. The most level of access to corporate data. We gadget geeks are sit- recent version available for embedded computers, such ting pretty as well, and we’re all looking forward to new as PDAs and phones, is kernel 2.6. This is a powerful OS products that doubtless will make our lives easier. with enhanced real-time performance, flexible I/O and support for microcontrollers and large memory models. Phone-centric Choice: Symbian From the ground up, Despite the fact that it owns essentially no market Symbian emphasizes strong voice functionality and voice share, Linux could become a heavyweight, especially as integration with data functions.