Secure Payment in Mobile Business

Mobile commerce offers consumers the convenience and flexibility of mobile services anytime and at any place. Secured and private mobile business processes using a mobile gadget for payments are essential for the success of mobile commerce. Mobile payment is the process of two parties exchanging financial value using a mobile device in return for goods and services. This chapter is an analysis of the secure mobile payment services for real automated point of sale (PoS), which are frequently used in terminals such as vending machines.

Increasing the Performability of Wireless Web Services

Wireless Web services are becoming a reality, if they have not already. The unique characteristics of the mobile devices and wireless communication medium, such as limited computing power, limited network bandwidth, limited battery life, unpredictable online time, mobility, and so forth,, imply that the infrastructure for wireless Web services will be very different from its wired counterpart. This chapter discusses the challenges and the stateof- the-art solutions to ensure highly performable wireless Web services. In particular, this chapter’s focus is on three technical issues: optimization of the wireless Web services messaging protocol, caching, and fault tolerance. Finally, limitations of the current approaches and an outline of future research directions on wireless Web services are also discussed.

Mobile Technologies Extending ERP Systems

Nowadays the majority of enterprises use Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software to improve their business processes. Simultaneously, mobile technologies which can be used within ERP have gained further importance. This is because ERP, together with mobile technologies, offers a wide spectrum of synergies and both have a significant impact on enterprise efficiency. The improvement possibilities in ERP due to mobility range from sales activities, over logistic processes, up to effects on the human resource management.

Cell Broadcasting Opportunities of Modern Mobile Communications and Its Usage in Emergency Warning Facilities

In the scope of the present chapter, the authors evaluate several potential opportunities from the suggested use of cell broadcasting systems in mobile communications and its specific usage mainly in emergency warning facilities, at the global level. Cell Broadcasting (CB) is a cellular-based public notification system, existing in the vast majority of all modern mobile infrastructures, worldwide. It can instantly (within a brief timeframe of some seconds) broadcast a cell phone text alert or message to a large number of people (independently of their network operators) specific to a geographical area, covered either by a single cell or by the entire (regional or national) network. Thus, CB technology enables governmental and other appropriate authorities/entities to securely transmit emergency alerts of natural or manmade disasters to the cellular phones of the subscribers in specific areas. Simultaneously, it can offer multiple extra advantages for further market offerings and development. This chapter discusses the challenge imposed by the fast development of the corresponding cellular facilities and, after providing some fundamental technical informative background, it focuses on the advantages offered due to CB with an overview of the current European and international market. The chapter then analyzes options for further evolution in several sectors (political issues, technical matters, and regulatory perspectives). CB is a strong, viable, and immediate communications solution, which can be put in place to better alert citizens.

Successful Implementation of Emerging Communication Technologies in a Mobile-Intense Organization

Wireless Technology is growing at a phenomenal rate. Of the many present challenges highlighted by the author, increased security is one of the main challenges for both developers and end users. This chapter presents this important security aspect of implementing a mobile solution in the context of Sydney International airport. After tackling initial challenges and issues faced during the implementation of wireless technology, this chapter demonstrates how security issues and wireless application were implemented at this mobile-intense airport organization. The decision to deploy and manage the wireless spectrum throughout the Airport campus meant that the wireless LAN had to share the medium with public users, tenants and aircraft communications on the same bandwidth. Therefore, this case study also demonstrates invaluable approach to protect unintended users from breach of existing security policies adopted by their corporate network. Authentication and data privacy challenges, as well as complete WLAN connectivity for tenants, public and corporate usage is presented in this case study.

Social Aspects of Mobile Technologies on Web Tourism Trend

This chapter analyzes how the development and use of mobile and Web technologies are changing the way to search information, to plan, to buy, and to travel. The new technologies are changing several aspects of our life, such as the way in which people work, buy, learn, travel, and how they relate to each other, and so on. The tourist sector certainly represents one of the most dynamic markets, able to capture innovations and opportunities provided by the Web, in such a way that gets to be an out-and-out model of e-business. Internet access now is not restricted to personal computer. In fact the use of mobile devices is becoming increasingly important. The chapter’s goal is to analyze social implications of Web applications and mobile devices and how they are improving the attitude of the customers both the fruition of tourism services and to development of sustainable tourism.

Channel Optimization for On Field Sales Force by Integration of Business Software on Mobile Platforms

Marketing and sales channels are a significant lifeline for the sales force of a business. Sales professionals work on the concept of creating and widening channels that are then fed by the supply chain and distribution network of the businesses. Sales teams are constantly pushed to meet customer expectations while generating revenue for the company. As companies grow, these pressures increase. Sales teams are now looking at Mobile Sales Force Automation technologies to handle the ever increasing customer demands. Companies want to keep costs low, increase productivity and efficiency through mobile devices for the much needed edge on the field. This chapter is based on literature review of channel optimization as well as mobile software platforms and challenges faced by the sales force. This chapter discusses the need for integrating business software on mobile platforms that will optimize and enhance the performance of sales processes.

Transitioning Business Processes to a Collaborative Business Environment with Mobility

Web Services (WS) technologies create the potential for an organization to collaborate with partners and customers by enabling its software applications to transact over the Internet. This collaboration is achieved by carefully incorporating Web Services in the organization’s software applications, resulting in comprehensive Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) for the enterprise. This incorporation of WS-enabled applications and components in the organization’s overall enterprise architecture requires understanding of the service at three interrelated yet distinct layers: policies, activities, and standards. This chapter describes how the existing business processes of an organization are transitioned in to collaborative business processes that would result in a Collaborative Web- Based System (CWBS). The ideas presented in this chapter have been validated through an action-research carried out by the authors in a large energy supplier organization in Melbourne, Australia.

Case Studies in Mobile Business

Th first part of this chapter deals with various mobile business applications and initiatives taken from real-life companies of which successfully implemented their go-to-market strategy in the wireless world. The structure of this chapter can be summarized into three main areas. At the beginning, the current market situation for mobile environment is described through highlighting how decreasing revenue is forcing companies to quickly innovate their offering to cope with highly intensive competition, justifying such an assumption with the flexible and open value chain. The second part is covering the Lateral Marketing approach in its main points under a theoretical point of view. Eventually, some examples of mobile applications and services are provided to reinforce the validity and need of Lateral Marketing to build reliable and durable growth.

Social Context for Mobile Computing Device Adoption and Diffusion

The purpose of this chapter is to explore and suggest how perceptions of the social context of an organization moderate the usage of an innovative technology. We propose a research model that is strongly grounded in theory and offer a number of associated propositions that can be used to investigate adoption and diffusion of mobile computing devices for business-to-business (B2B) interactions (including transactions and other informational exchanges). Mobile computing devices for B2B are treated as a technological innovation. An extension of existing adoption and diffusion models by considering the social contextual factors is necessary and appropriate in light of the fact that various aspects of the social context have been generally cited to be important in the introduction of new technologies. In particular, a micro-level analysis of this phenomenon for the introduction of new technologies is not common. Since the technological innovation that is considered here is very much in its nascent stages there may not as yet be a large body of users in a B2B context. Therefore, this provides a rich opportunity to conduct academic research. We expect this chapter to sow the seeds for extensive empirical research in the future.