Part Overview

Over the past five years, many corporations have spent countless resources moving their client/server applications to a three-tier Internet architecture. Doing this has made it possible to provide enterprise data access to anyone with a desktop Web browser. You no longer have to deploy client applications on CDs or other media, because the presentation logic is all designed for Internet access, most commonly using HTML as the foundation. In this way, users simply have to enter a URL to access the applications and content that they require.

We have now reached a point where many enterprise applications have been Web-enabled. The result is a vast number of applications making all forms of data available over the Internet. These applications range from business applications on secure corporate intranets to consumer applications available to anyone with a Web browser and an Internet connection. Due to the broad range of applications and content available, the Internet is frequently used for many everyday tasks such as making appointments, checking email, and making purchases; and the corporate world relies heavily on it for information dissemination and business application access. So it follows that, as more people require mobile access to their data, it be distributed wirelessly using the Internet.

In this Part we will take a look at the technologies relevant to building wireless Internet applications with a focus on the enterprise space. The part has been broken into five chapters, providing insight into the requirements of building enterprise wireless Internet applications, as follows.