News / Research
An agent framework tackles early mobile web-service limits
A 2006 research article addressed a practical early-mobile problem: devices shared some functions but used varied platforms, making access to desktop applications difficult.
Moving work away from the handset
The article compared three architectures for mobile web services. A wireless portal placed a gateway between the client and provider; an extended Internet model let the device exchange SOAP messages directly; and a peer-to-peer model allowed mobile devices to provide services as well as request them.
Its proposed agent-based framework used the portal approach to avoid XML processing on the handset. The authors also discussed dynamic service selection based on factors such as availability, reliability, duration, price and security. The argument reflects constraints of the devices and protocols examined, rather than a general verdict on every mobile architecture.