As we know, Mobile business Objects(MBO) are object models which maps to backend systems, for example database, sap systems or web services. The mapping can be done by a bottom-up method. The easy and simple way of doing this is binding the data source at the time of development. The attributes and operations can be generated automatically. In case you do not have access to backend data source, you have to set up the things by yourself, mostly by manual.

MBO is reusable. Always keep it in mind because this is the important feature Sybase Unwired Platform offers you to speed up development cycles. MBOs can be reused in the same project and consumed by different mobile devices. They can also be consumed across projects in Workspace. Suppose you have a complicated mobile application to build, you can try to group all the MBOs in one project and make them referenced. Logical group can be used to tidy things up a little more.

MBO can contain parameters. For the querys you build inside the MBO, parameters can be taken in as a sychronaztion parameter, probably in the WHERE clause.

Switch to Advanced Developer Profile when designing your MBO. It includes the complete features and setting of MBO. To switch between developer profiles, right-click in the Mobile Application Diagram,
select Switch Developer Profile, then select either Basic or Advanced.To view or modify your preference settings for the developer profile, click Window >
Preferences > Sybase, Inc. > Mobile Development > Developer Profile.

Last but not least, always consider performance at the first priority. Sybase Unwired Platform and its build-in Cache Database(CDB) offers good choices of improving performance of enterprise mobile applications. Think about querying a big database table by mobile devices. Use load parameter and sychronization parameter with data refresh mechanism to reduce the data replication volumes. Data Partition is also a good method to increase parrallel processing of data replications.

Mobile Workflow or Mobile container has always been a important technology element in Sybase Unwired Platform. It enables developers to use HTML5 and Jquery to build applications which can be deployed across different mobile devices. Here is an example of how to build a simple mobile workflow application by Sybase Unwired Platform.

I assume that you have already installed Sybase Unwired Platform Runtime Server 2.1 and Mobile SDK 2.1. At the time of writing this article, SUP2.1 ESD#1 has just released. However we still use version 2.1 as it should be more stable at this moment.

1. We start by building a new sybase mobile application named Customer101

2. First Step, we need to build a Mobile Business Object(MBO) from a database table. This is a simple business object which maps attributes upon the customer table in sampledb which is shipped and installed with SUP. Drag the customer table into the mobile application diagram. Uncheck the operations in the popup window.

3. Deploy the MBO into the SUP Server. As we will test the built application on iOS simulator, we choose Message-based Replication type.

4. Create a Mobile Forms named Customer_List. The generated xbw file is located in the major location we design and build our application UI and flows. We check the "Can be start from the client" option.

5. Drag the Customer MBO we create in previous steps from the Workspace Navigator into the Forms Editor, it will automatically generate two screens for you, one is customer and the other is the customerdetails. Screen flow has already been created between these two screens.

6. Create a MenuItem named Open, set the type as "online request", object query as "findall" and success screen as "customer".

7. Generate mobile workflow package, use the default settings and assign workflow to users we registered in Sybase Control Center. This concludes the whole process of development.

8. Take a test in the iOS simulator. And you will get a "beautiful" customer list when you click "open" in the start screen.

In next part, we will try to customize the application and see how we can make it more like a productive mobile application.

Last week I met with an guy from OpenText, which is now the largest Canadian technology company, just surpassing RIM this year in market share. He was using blackberry and he told me blackberry is still their first choice recommended by his company but lots of his colleagues have switched to iPhone or Android this year. He said it can hardly be imagined several year ago when all the employees of OpenText are enjoying Blackberry shipped from their Canadian neighbor. 

It is true that RIM is in its downside. This week RIM(Research In Motion) reports its third quarter fiscal 2012 results. Compared to Q2, the number is up 24% but is down 6% from same quarter last year. RIM's share drops to its lowest level in recent seven years.

Some blames arise pointing out the failure of playbook which distract RIM's focus on Blackberry phones. From my point of view, playbook is still in the team of potentially threating iPad.

It is easy to see that Playbook has much in common with iPad, same screen resolution, sandboxing operating system and app store. Because of these thing, Playbook is more secure and reliable to deploy into enterprise environment, not to say RIM has its own huge enterprise users. Some of my customers always complain about the different versions of Android devices and hardly any code can cater different screen resolutions. Open source makes community thriving but will be a disaster to enterprises. Same problems may happen to meego, and webos which is announced to be open-source by HP.

I think and I guess that is why SAP is still favoring Blackberry or Playbook. SAP has the most mobility demos running on iOS and Blackberry. Recently several additional Playbook demos are released internally focusing on different industry scenarios. I happen to have time installing the Playbook simulator and run out some screenshots for your digest. Playbook may not be ready now but is deserved to get visionary attentions.

After you download and open the latest SAP mobile apps downloaded from itunes store, you will be prompted to set a vault password for the first time you get your device on boarding. This is the solution of Sybase Unwired Platform to secure your data on your mobile device.

DataVault uses APIs to encrypt and unlock local data store by passing the password. The mobile user must set up the password during application initialization and must remember it forever. They will be asked to re-enter the password each time they restart the application. The connection information of backend Sybase Unwired Platform as well as the certificate and user credentials for authentication are also stored and can only be opened by inputing the vault password.

DataVault is a powerful because it can set retry limit of password input, expiration time before last login and mandatory password change period.  DataVault is located in somewhere specific to device. On iPhone it is stored as and encrypted blog in the keychain. The local store cannot be accessed by other applications as sandboxing rules of device prevent that. Retry limit control of password secures lost mobile devices and it is not possible to decrypt the underlying data store unless the vault password is retrieved.

Recently I meet with a customer who adopted Blackberry solutions years ago. They situated in southern China and are considering enhancing their mobility infrastructure because of the following reasons,

• Blackberry devices are considered not secure enough
• Not supporting different types of devices
• The customer needs a more open and mature platform for rapid enterprise application development and deployment instead of a single proprietory vendor solution
• Lack of applications and intuitive UI
• High risks of government regulation and banning (frequetly happen in China). Not to say it already happens in India and Britain this year.

That is the reason, when I see the news that RIM released Blackberry Fusion, at the first moment I googled into the product site. After scanning around several minutes, I catch up some key points which you can follow,

• Blackberry Fusion is coming in 2012, so it is not yet to release
• Blackberry Fusion is based on the acquired technology which runs on top of BES Server to support iOS and android, so the integration is uncertain
• Blackberry Balance(what a good name) technology enables seperation of personal and working data on blackberry devices. It fits quite well with BYOD(Bring your own device) trend.

RIM is struggling to keep its customers from losing confidence. RIM BES solution still works best in a pure blackberry-enabled enterprise, as it is also agreed by the customer I mentioned above. However, in this world which iPhone and Android dominate and will dominate in the near future, we need to see more on the endeavor of the Canadians.