Who Should Read This Book

If you or your organization is planning to build mobile and/or wireless applications, this book is for you. The content is appropriate for anyone who wants or needs to learn about mobile and wireless technology and how it applies to building successful applications. Though the book is technical in nature, it does not necessarily require you to have a strong technical background. If you are comfortable with general computing architectures and have some understanding of how applications are developed, then you will be able to gain valuable information from reading this book. More specifically, if you have in-depth development experience, and are already knowledgeable about mobile computing, the design and development chapters will prove to be beneficial, as will the chapters on related technologies such as location-based services and mobile information management. Many of my colleagues who are very proficient in mobile computing were able to garner new knowledge and ideas by reading this book.

Depending on your background, you can read this book in a number of different ways. Those of you who are new to mobile and wireless computing or who do not have a technical background will benefit most by reading the first four chapters in order. These will give you a solid understanding of the business aspects of mobile and wireless computing and of mobile devices, wireless networks, and mobile application architectures. You may then want to continue reading through each chapter sequentially, or you may want to jump to another section that is of interest to you. An entire part of the book is dedicated to each of the leading mobile application architectures; and the final part delves into technologies that are useful, but not necessarily required to build mobile applications.

For those of you who have experience with mobile devices and wireless networks, and who want to learn more about mobile application architecture design and development techniques, you may want to jump straight to Chapter 4, "Mobile Application Architectures," and go from there. After reading Chapter 4, you will have a solid understanding of your development options, enabling you to move on to the chapters that are relevant to the applications you are planning to develop. As you are reading, you can always reference the chapters on key technologies, such as wireless networks, mobile devices, and security, to refresh your knowledge of those topics.

However you read this book, it will prove to be a useful reference tool. Whether you read it from cover to cover or only read the chapters most pertinent to your project, you will always be able to go back and review content as required. Each chapter also contains a list of helpful Web links where you can go to get more in-depth information, updates on technology specifications, or another perspective on how the technology relates to your project. This book is intended as an all-in-one resource containing concise, yet insightful, information on all aspects of the mobile and wireless industry.