January 2008

Foreword

Dear Architect,

Every day I find the pervasiveness of mobile phones and devices just amazing, especially when I look at the projected growth rate for the next few years. With this growth and the rapid advances in mobile technology, I realize that there is a very good chance that my children will grow up never knowing what landline, rotary or pulse dialing really means! With any technology, software plays an important role in complementing this phenomenal growth of hardware, and this is the focus of this issue of The Architecture Journal.

To lead off this issue, Atanu Banerjee covers many considerations and aspects of applications on mobile devices today. Following this, Kulathumani Hariharan, an architect at Tata Consultancy Services, shares best practices, tips, and recommendations that may be pertinent if you are considering taking a line-of-business application to the mobile platform. We are then joined by Christoph Schittko, Darryl Hogan, and Jon Box as they introduce us to a scenario of a connected consumer experience in automotive devices. We explore what the future of software in the automobile may look like and some of the architectural perspectives that support this. Closely related to this article, we are very pleased to have our first external architect profile in The Architecture Journal. Faisal Waris is an architectural consultant, working at Ford Motor Company. We ask him about some of his thoughts on architecture, especially as they relate to mobile development.

Following Faisal, Rodney Guzman of InterKnowlogy shares some of his thoughts on mobile data architecture. Rodney explores some of the data challenges with occasionally connected applications and offers some ideas and concepts to help address data conflict resolution. Taking a deeper dive into mobile development, we are then joined by Munjal Budhabhatti from ThoughtWorks, who covers the importance of test-driven development and continuous integration, common engineering practices for many organizations, and discusses how these can be implemented for mobile applications.

We wrap up this issue with a trip to Hungary with András Velvárt and Peter Smulovics to look at how Monicomp, an organization that installs, maintains, and repairs point-of-service systems is using an ultra-mobile PC application for their support technicians on the road.

That brings this issue to close. I hope that some of the articles and authors help inspire mobile application development in your organization. We’ll be returning in the new year with Journal 15 on the “Role of an Architect,” where we’ll be taking a closer look at the people in our profession, and putting the work that we do under the microscope!

Simon Guest

Articles in This Issue

Architectural Considerations for a World of Devices

by Atanu Banerjee

Explore the architectural aspects and considerations in designing applications for mobile devices.

Best Practices: Extending Enterprise Applications to Mobile Devices

by Kulathumani Hariharan

Discover best practices and recommendations for extending enterprise applications to a mobile platform.

Connected Consumer Experience in Automobiles

by Christoph Schittko, Darryl Hogan, and Jon Box

How can the automobile be extended to support more advanced software capabilities?

Explore a scenario and architectural considerations for creating connected consumer experiences.

Architecture Journal Profile: Faisal Waris

In our first external architect profile, we chat with Faisal Waris about his role, thoughts on mobile devices, and general architectural trends.

Mobile Data Architecture

by Rodney Guzman

What are the data challenges associated with occasionally connected mobile applications, and how can you overcome them?

Test-Driven Development and Continuous Integration for Mobile Applications

by Munjal Budhabhatti

Learn how test-driven development and continuous integration can help increase the reliability of applications, and how both approaches work for mobile applications.

Case Study: Support Technicians on the Road

by András Velvárt and Peter Smulovics

Investigate a case study of how support technicians on the road in Hungary benefit from a state-of-the-art mobile application.

Download this issue here

This article was published in the Architecture Journal, a print and online publication produced by Microsoft. For more articles from this publication, please visit the Architecture Journal Web site.