Part 3: Gateway Provider vs. Wireless Middleware Vendor

What if you need to support multiple devices and multiple wireless networks? There are two basic directions to go: make use of a gateway provider or a wireless middleware vendor. There are advantages to both methods. A gateway provider, such as GoAmerica (for BlackBerry) and OmniSky (for Palm and Pocket PC devices), creates a connection from your application to its servers over the Internet, so you won't need to install any equipment on your corporate network.

"Since we connect to the various networks, there is also only one bill that the customer receives, which can be comforting," says Ilya Welfeld of GoAmerica.

However, your applications must be Web-friendly, meaning that you can extract and query your data over ordinary Web browsers. If not, you'll need to consider the middleware approach, which will require specialized servers installed behind your corporate firewall. Middleware software vendors include Everypath, Brience and iPlanet. With either direction, you won't have to negotiate separate network agreements with each wireless network operator, and can extend the reach of your applications to a wider audience of users.

Finally, you need to consider where your data is coming from, and how you can manipulate it, both for querying and for wireless users to post their updates. Given that all wireless networks have high latencies and low throughputs, you'll want to minimize the round-trip transactions that are needed to send information to the wireless device, as well as minimize the total bytes delivered.

"You'll need to get a bunch of HTML jockeys together and do a separate version of your Web site that is more wireless-friendly," says Dave Rensin, chief strategy officer at OmniSky.

Users might also have to install specialized middleware servers and services to gather data from multiple sources, and manipulate it in a way that can be handled by wireless devices' tiny screens.

"Corporations need to have their critical information available in a Web format of some kind already, to work with our service," says GoAmerica's Welfeld.

Part 4: Top 5 Questions to Ask Before Developing a Wireless Portal