A mobile service platform using proxy technology

Abstract

This paper proposes iMobile, a proxy-based platform for developing mobile services for various mobile devices and wireless access technologies. iMobile acts as a message gateway that allows mobile devices to relay messages to each other through various protocols on different access networks. It allows mobile devices to access internet services, corporate databases and to control various network devices. iMobile implements three key abstractions: dev-let, info-let and app-let. An info-let provides abstract view of information space. An app-let implements service or application logic by processing information from various info-lets. A dev-let receives and sends messages through any particular protocols for mobile devices. The let engine supports user and device profiles for personalization and transcoding, and invokes proper app-lets and info-lets to answer requests from a dev-let. The iMobile modular architecture allows developers to write device drivers, information access methods and application logic independently from each other. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.