ABSTRACT
Introduction ........................................................................................................ 115 Mobile Business Scenarios ................................................................................ 116 Enterprise Mobility Requirements ..................................................................... 119 Mobile Middleware: Concepts and Technologies .............................................. 122
Context Management ................................................................................ 123 Connection Management .......................................................................... 124 Resource Management .............................................................................. 125
The WhereX Middleware ................................................................................... 125 Commercial Applications ......................................................................... 128
Summary ............................................................................................................ 129 References .......................................................................................................... 129
In recent years, mobile computing has become the new frontier of communication processes with the effects of several changes on the design and provision of distri buted services, thus producing new business scenarios. Enterprise systems integration, a key process to enable interoperability among applications and to allow resource decentralization, has to take into account, from now on, mobility aspects. Mobility introduces signifi cant challenges to enterprise system integration, by extending the interoperability concept and by promoting new forms of collaboration. Portable devices are able to access miscellaneous services or to provide locationdependent data anyway, anytime, and anywhere, thanks to the connectivity powered by the modern network technologies. Mobile computing scenarios call for a careful management of issues such as context awareness, mobility management, seamless connectivity, and so on.
