INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMPUTER APPLICATIONS IN ENGINEERING, TECHNOLOGY AND SCIENCES (IJ-CA-ETS)

Mobile Middleware and Integrated Structure for Emerging

Wireless Commerce Applications
Surendra Rahamatkar1, Dr. Ajay Agarwal2, Anupam Singh3
1
Asst. Professor, Bharat Institute of Technology, Meerut (UP), rahamatkar_s@rediffmail.com
2
Director, Vankateshwara Institute of Technology, Meerut (UP), ajay.aagar@gmail.com
3
Sr. Lecturer, Bharat Institute of Technology (UP). Anupam_2007@yahoo.co.in

Abstract:- Wireless commerce is dramatically changing the dynamics by which companies

operate, as it combines the advantages of eCommerce with the mobility and freedom of wireless
devices such as cellular telephones, pagers and PDAs. Wireless commerce is viewed as the
extension of the Internet-based e-commerce beyond the static terminal of the PC or the Web-TV
to the flexible anytime, anywhere, anyplace context of the mobile environment. While many in the
industry and popular press seem to equate the world of Internet e-commerce and wireless
commerce as one and the same, there are unique characteristics of the wireless technology and
its usage that renders it distinctly different from and complementary to Internet based
ecommerce. This difference also has important implications for the marketing of good, services,
and content and for conducting marketing research using wireless technology. In this paper, we
first outline the distinctive characteristics and utilities of wireless technology. After this we
propose a 4-level integrated framework for wireless commerce. We also address the networking
requirements of these applications and discuss how these requirements can be supported by
existing and emerging wireless networks.
Keywords: Mobile commerce, wireless commerce application, wireless middleware.

I. Introduction: Wireless commerce – the concept of enabling

Wireless commerce combines
advantages of eCommerce with the mobility
and freedom of wireless devices such as
cellular telephones, pagers and PDAs.
Wireless commerce is viewed as the
extension of the Internet-based e-commerce
beyond the static terminal of the PC or the
Web-TV to the flexible anytime, anywhere,
anyplace context of the mobile environment.
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the enterprise and commerce applications for
customers, partners, and employees anytime,
anywhere, anyplace – is now being viewed as
the next big technology enabled breakthrough
looming over the horizon. Many mobile
devices such as laptop computers and personal
digital assistants (PDAs) are already being
used as extended enterprise tools. This mobile
suite is now being supplemented by digital
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telephones with Internet and wireless data
access capabilities. The extended enterprise
applications are closely followed by wireless
commerce applications directly to the
customer and the consumer via these
wireless devices. The market potential for
wireless commerce is quite significant [1].
Electronic commerce has attracted
significant attention in the last few years.
This high profile attention has resulted in
significant progress towards strategies,
requirements, and development of
commerce applications [2]. We envision
many new e-commerce applications will be
possible and significantly benefit from
emerging wireless and mobile networks. We
term these applications "wireless
commerce" or "mobile commerce". These
applications are likely to provide new
opportunities for users, developers,
providers, and researchers. Wireless and
mobile networks have experienced
exponential growth in terms of capabilities
of mobile devices, middleware development,
standards and network implementation, and
user acceptance [3]. Currently, more 500
million cell phones and other mobile devices
are in use worldwide, and out of those, more
than 100 million users are in US alone [4].
These numbers are projected to rise to 1
billion in the next few years [5] thereby
exceeding the combined total of all computing
devices several fold. In this paper, we examine
how new e-commerce applications can be
designed and supported by wireless and
mobile networks and mobile middleware. We
strongly believe that with the widespread
deployment of wireless technologies, the next
phase of electronic business growth will be in
the area of wireless and mobile e-commerce.
We are aware that consensus within business
and industry of such future applications is still
e- in its infancy. However, we are interested in
examining those future applications and
technologies that will form the next frontier of
electronic commerce.
e- II. Characteristics of Wireless
The key characteristic of the wireless device
can be summed up in two words “ubiquitous
interactivity” (Figure I). It is a personal
device, which is always a handy and available
at all time on a person. In addition, the device
carries its user identity. This is a significantly
distinctive characteristic as compared to a PC
or a laptop, which are not generally handy or
easy to use at a moment’s notice, although
they may be available at all times. Second, a
wireless device is distinctly personal and the
usage can be tracked down to an individual
rather than the household as in the case of a
PC or other devices. Third, wireless

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technology is “location aware” – that is, it is
easy to track down where the user physically
is as long as the wireless device is on. These
characteristics have important marketing
implications, as we will later analyze.
HOME CAR OFFICE
ON-THE-MOVE
Figure I: Ubiquitous Interactivity
The wireless technology also has some
constraints that limit its usage in the near
future [6]. Given the constraints of its size
for a handy usage, the user interface of a
wireless device is quite limited and cannot
display information-rich content in a useful
way. This constraint also limits the client
capabilities for processing and storing
information and data. Most importantly, the
bandwidth over the air for
transmission is also a constraint in the near
future. These constraints limit the use of
wireless technology for predominantly text-
based, less information-intensive exchanges
and interactions. Thus, if
environment is viewed purely
extension of the Internet environment, it is a
downgraded Web access at best. New
possibilities for commerce
wireless technology emerge when it is seen
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not just as a Web access. Since wireless is a
personal device, it is easy to use for
identification and authentication purposes
both for restricted access and for payment
purposes. This implies that it could be used as
a substitute for credit cards. The fact that it is
available at all times to interact with users
suggests that it can be used to obtain instant
feedback from customers at the usage context
for market research purposes. The location
awareness characteristic of wireless
technology also suggests the possibility of
providing consumers advertisements,
information content (e.g., price alerts) at the
point of need, be it in a car, or in a brick-and-
mortar store, or any other place. Many players
in the wireless application arena are attracted
to the enormous potential that wireless
technology has in customer acquisition and
retention. There are four factors that make
wireless wireless the ideal technology to implement the
concept of customer relationship management
(CRM): (1) the ability to provide truly
personalized content and service by tracking
personal identity; (2) the ability to track
wireless consumers across media and over time; (3) to
as an provide content and service at the point of
need, and finally, (4) the capability to provide
content of highly engaging characteristic.
using the Given this it is not surprising that business-to-
consumer wireless applications dominate the
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list of commerce applications that are
emerging in the market place (see Table I).
In the B2C domain, wireless can be
effectively used to provide
purchase support for the buying goods in a
brick and mortar (B&M) environment. This
could be retrieval of product information
(price, quality ratings of alternatives from
different competitors), usage of the product
information, budget and
information, etc. Another possibility is the
use for auction purchases where the
anywhere, anytime quality of wireless
technology proves very useful. Similar uses
could be visualized in the B2B arena but
impact is a little less significant.
Goods Services
Interactive Games
Gambling
The most significant possibilities lie in the
marketing of services over wireless, ranging
from interactive games, gambling, booking
point-of- and ticketing for travel, hotels and events,
banking and stock trading, and for e-
promotion and marketing research purposes.
Wireless also provides a very viable means of
streaming customized content (cross media
content – music, text information at the point
payment of need, advertisement) and for interaction
with other users (e-mail, chat, discussion etc).
It is to be noted that substitutes for wireless
exist for most of the above applications and
wireless will become the device of primary
choice for these applications when all the
virtues of wireless – convenience, cost and
Content compulsion to use are fully realized.
Cross-Media
III. The Mobile Commerce Framework
Content

Point-of-Purchase Booking/Ticketing Advertisement To help future applications and technologies

B2C Support for B&M Services
handle m-commerce, we propose the
Needs based
Auction Trading Banking/Trading Content framework as shown in Figure II. This
framework will allow developers and
Vending E-Promotions/ Interactive
providers to strategize and effectively
Loyalty Schemes/ Chat
Market Research Discussion implement mobile commerce applications.
Procurement The framework defines multiple functional
JIT systems Ads/Need
layers, simplifying the design and
B2B Customer Support based
Auction/Exchange Content development, so different parties (vendors,
Trading providers, and designers, etc.) can focus on
Table I: Wireless Commerce Applications
individual layers. By using following
framework, a single entity is not forced to do

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everything to build mobile commerce
systems; rather, they can build on the
functionalities provided by others. This will
speed up the development of m-commerce
applications as designers and developers can
assume certain functions provided by lower
layers and need not focus on capabilities and
constraints of individual devices
networks.
Figure II. The framework for m-commerce
The framework has four levels:
commerce applications, user infrastructure,
middleware, and network infrastructure. The
framework shows that the design of new
mobile commerce applications should take
into consideration the general capabilities of
user infrastructure (mobile devices), and not
the individual devices. With its ability to
hide details of underlying wireless and
mobile networks from applications while at
the same time providing a uniform and easy
to use interface, mobile middleware clearly
is an extremely important component in
developing new mobile commerce
applications. The network infrastructure also
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plays an important role in mobile commerce,
as the user perceived service quality depends
on available resources and capabilities of
wireless and mobile networks.
The framework also provides a developer and
provider plane to address the different needs
and roles of application developers, content
and providers, and service providers. Each one of
these could build its products and services
using the functionalities provided by others. A
content provider can build its service using
applications from multiple application
developers. They can also aggregate content
from other content providers and can supply
the aggregated content to a network operator
or service provider. Service providers can also
m-
act as content aggregators, but are unlikely to
act as either an application or content provider
due to their focus on the networking and
service aspects of m-commerce. A service
provider can also act as a clearing-house for
content and application providers in
advertising and distributing their products to
its customers. In any case, the developer and
provider plane in our framework is likely to
have multiple layers.
Wireless carriers can play a very active and
important role in the mobile commerce
applications and services due to the fact that a
mobile user is going through their networks to
perform all mobile commerce transactions.
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Additionally, a mobile user is likely to of mobile commerce applications under

prefer one common bill (bundled services) different classes with
for voice, data, and mobile commerce Class of Examples
Applications
services. However, there are many technical
Mobile Financial Banking, brokerage, and
and non-technical hurdles (such as pricing Applications payments for mobile users
(B2C, B2B)
for mobile commerce transactions) that need
Mobile Sending user specific and
to be overcome before carriers can become Advertising location sensitive
(B2C) advertisements to users
major players in this emerging field. An Mobile Inventory Location tracking of goods,
Management boxes, troops, and people
open framework will prevent the design and (B2C, B2B)
Proactive Service Transmission of information
development of proprietary products and Management related to aging
services that may be built in an ad hoc (B2C, B2B) (automobile) components to
vendors
fashion. We believe that our framework will Product Locating Locating/ordering certain
and items from a mobile device
allow interoperability of m-commerce Shopping (B2C,
B2B)
applications and products from different Wireless Improvement of business
Reengineering
providers and vendors. This would help in
(B2C, B2B)
the adoption of m-commerce on a global services
Mobile Auction Services for a customers to
scale. or buy or sell certain items
Reverse Auction
IV. Emerging Mobile Commerce (B2C)
Applications Mobile Video-on-demand and other
Entertainment services to a mobile user
Services (B2C)
Since there are potentially an unlimited Mobile Office Working from traffic jams,
(B2C) airport, and conferences
number of mobile commerce applications, Mobile Distance Taking a class using
Education (B2C) streaming audio & video
we only identify a few important classes of
Wireless Data Information can be
applications and provide examples within Center downloaded by mobile
(B2C, B2B) users/vendors
each class as shown in Table II. According Mobile Downloading and playing
Music/Music- music using a mobile device
to estimates from a report by Durlacher [7], ondemand
(B2C)
more than half of the European mobile
Table II: Class of m-commerce applications
commerce market in the next few years may
varying requirements in terms of devices,
consist of financial, advertising and
middleware, and networks. In the following
shopping services. In this paper, however,
subsections, we discuss mobile financial
we attempt to cover a comprehensive range
applications in more detail. We provide some

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scenarios and include discussion on the
required infrastructure and related business
issues.
A. Mobile Financial Applications (MFA)
Mobile Financial Applications are likely to
be one of the most important components of
m-commerce. These could involve a variety
of applications such as mobile banking and
brokerage service, mobile money transfer,
and mobile micro-payments as shown in
Figure III. These services could turn a
Finish wireless provider, in their famous Coke
(and now Pepsi) machine service [8]. In effect,
it collects money from the users and credits it
to the vending providers. Another way to
perform micro payments may be via using
pre-paid numbers purchased from a service
provider, bank, or credit-card company.
Mobile Banking/Brokerage
Mobile Money
Transfer

mobile device into a business tool, replacing

bank, ATM, and credit cards by letting a
Mobile micro-payments
user conduct financial transactions with
mobile money. Certainly more work is
Figure III. Mobile financial services
needed in providing transaction support in
To support financial transactions including
the applications and network infrastructure.
micro-payments, a mobile service provider
Secure transactions are required before any
could act as a bank, acquire a bank, or
of these applications are widely deployed.
compete with a bank.
One interesting mobile financial application
V. Mobile Middleware
is micro payment involving small purchases
Traditionally, middleware unites different
such as vending and other items. A mobile
applications, tools, networks and technologies
device can communicate with a vending
yet allowing user access via a common set of
machine using a local wireless network to
interface. Mobile middleware can be defined
purchase desired items. Micro-payments can
as an enabling layer of software that is used by
be implemented in a variety of ways. One
applications developers to connect their e-
way is that the user could make a call to a
commerce applications with different mobile
certain number where per-minute charges
networks and operating systems without
equal the cost of vending item. This
introducing mobility awareness in the
approach has been used by SONERA, a
applications (Figure IV).

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Applications
and American models of mobile commerce.
Since the area of mobile commerce is very
Middleware/ Mobile Middleware
new and emerging, we have added several
interesting research problems that are either
Wired Network Wireless Network
currently being addressed by our group or
should be addressed by the research and
development community.
Figure IV. Mobile middleware for application
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VI. Related Issues and Conclusions
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In this paper, we have looked into several
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several key differences between European

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Available from http://www.durlacher.com/

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