RE: Comments on Device Description Repository Requirements 1.0

Having taken a look at the mobileaware.com site which I assume is Mr.
Hanrahan's employer, I found the following under their Products menu item:
--------------
"Mobile Interaction Server delivers Web-based content and business
applications to all mobile devices. Whether you are seeking to extend
existing enterprise applications to your customers, partners and mobile
workforce or looking to deliver advanced mobile data services to attract
more subscribers, the Mobile Interaction Server offers a proven solution
for delivering your business content to mobile devices.

Mobile Interaction Server seamlessly extends enterprise applications,
portals and web services allowing them to be accessed by any mobile device
at any time. It overcomes the challenges of enterprise mobility by
allowing businesses to:

    * Optimize mobile content delivery and presentation by providing easy
to use plug-ins to popular authoring tools for designing highly
personalized content and graphical user interfaces tailored for each
specific mobile device.
    * Rapidly develop and deploy multi-channel web applications by
integrating web and wireless services into a common framework.
    * Extend the capabilities of existing enterprise infrastructure by
enabling mobile device access to back-office applications and
databases.
    * Cost-effectively extend customer and employee self-service web
portals to support mobile access.
    * Future-proof the investment in enterprise mobility by adopting
mobile technologies that conform to industry open standards and offer
complete network, protocol and device independence for maximum
flexibility and control."
-------------

Having already read the Device Description Landscape working draft
(http://www.w3.org/TR/dd-landscape/#sec-theneedfordevicedescriptions), it
appears to me that what Mr. Hanrahan is proposing can be likened to a kind
of subclass of ISP (in a loose sense) that will provide the highly
specialized service of device adaptation as an intermediary step in the
content origin, transmission and reception cycle of web delivery.

I have to admit, I am skeptical about the (real, perceived or projected)
need for such an approach.  Call me old-fashioned but I believe that
origin-server adaptation based on established specifications and standards
is the soundest and most widely available approach.  Now, this is not to
say that a stored set of declarations similar to the Document Type
Definition is not a useful approach, but who (or which entity) will be
responsible for the definition, maintenance and updating of such a
repository if the intent is to cater to every conceivable mobile device
available?

Be Well All,

Sotiris Sotiropoulos

Received on Saturday, 6 May 2006 16:31:51 UTC