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MMIT Rules and Examples
While
it's tempting to think that any device can be a target for
the MMIT technology, it is important to note that laptops
are not considered "mobile devices" as far as
.NET is concerned. For best results, it is suggested that
web applications for desktop and laptop computers be developed
using ASP.NET with a similar web application developed exclusively
for mobile devices using MMIT. For example, figures 1 and
2 show how two different mobile devices render the "Cancel
a Reservation" portion of Dollar Rent A Car's MMIT
application. Note that server has automatically modified
the interface to fit the capabilities of each device. On
the other hand Figure 3 shows original ASP.NET based page
for desktop and laptop computers that the MMIT application
was derived from, and as you can see the larger screen real
estate allows an entirely different organization of the
information.
Because
there are hundreds of internet-capable devices on the market
MMIT allows developers to create web applications that are
accessible by all of them without the need to invest
as much additional time and money in testing and tweaking
code for each make and model as previously required. Microsoft
has already certified over 150 PDA's, cell phones, and other
wireless devices (see Appendix
A) for compatibility with MMIT including PDA's based
on alternative operating systems such as Palm
OS and Linux. Additionally, Microsoft is periodically
releasing free
MMIT update packs to add support for new devices that
hit the market. The beauty of this approach is that the
updates allow programmers to add support for new devices
at little cost and with only minor or no source code modifications.
Microsoft intends for MMIT to bring
mobile application developers closer to having a complete
"write once, run anywhere" solution without being
concerned about the hardware or software limitations of
each target device1. Since MMIT
is an add-on to .NET, developers also receive the benefit
of being able to use the same programming languages and
tools that they use in developing standard desktop and ASP.NET
applications.
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