Mobile Applications - Guide to Cloud Computing for Business and Technology Managers - page 492

Developers will be able to access and integrate mobile network
services such as messaging, location-based content delivery, syn-
dication, personalization, identification, authentication, and billing
services into their applications. This will ultimately enable solutions
that work seamlessly across stationary networks and mobile envi-
ronments. Customers will be able to use mobile Web Services from
multiple devices on both wired and wireless networks.
Delivering appealing, low-cost mobile data services, including ones that
are based on mobile Internet browsing and mobile commerce, is proving
increasingly difficult to achieve. The existing infrastructure and tools as well
as the interfaces between Internet/Web applications and mobile network
services remain largely fragmented, characterized by tightly coupled, costly,
and close alliances between value-added service providers and a complex
mixture of disparate and sometimes overlapping standards (WAP, MMS,
Presence, Identity, etc.) and proprietary models (e.g., propriety interfaces).
This hinders interoperability solutions for the mobile sector and at the same
time drives up the cost of application development and ultimately the cost of
services offered to mobile users. Such problems have given rise to initiatives
for standardizing mobile Web Services. The most important of these initia-
tives are the Open Mobile Alliance and the mobile Web Services frameworks
that are examined below.
The Open Mobile Alliance (www.openmobilealliance.org). The OMA is
a group of wireless vendors, IT companies, mobile operators, and applica-
tion and content providers, who have come together to drive the growth
of the mobile industry. The objective of OMA is to deliver open technical
specifications, based on market requirements, for the mobile industry, that
enable interoperable solutions across different devices, geographies, ser-
vice providers, operators, and networks. OMA includes all key elements
of the wireless value chain and contributes to the timely availability of
mobile service enablers. For enterprises already using a multitiered net-
work architecture based on open technologies, such as Web Services, which
implement wireless services, OMA is a straightforward extension of exist-
ing wireline processes and infrastructures. In this way, wireless services
become simply another delivery channel for communication, transactions,
and other value-added services. Currently, the OMA is defining core ser-
vices such as location, digital rights, and presence services and using cases
involving mobile subscribers, mobile operators, and service providers; an
architecture for the access and deployment of core services; and a Web
Services framework for using secure SOAP.
The technical working groups within OMA address the need to support
standardized interactions. To achieve this, the OMA is currently addressing
how mobile operators can leverage Web Services and defines a set of common
protocols, schemas, and processing rules using Web Services technologies