Week 6

1
Week 6

• Chapter 9 Advanced Technologies for E-Commerce

2
Outline

• Introduction to Mobile Agents
• WAP the Enabling Technology for Mobile Commerce
• XML (eXtensible Markup Language)
• Data Mining

3
Mobile Agent

• Mobile Agent
• Frees up resources
• More reliable
• More efficient due to distributed and parallel
  processing
• Example
• E-commerce systems
• Tabican, Nomad, MAGNET
• Mobile agent development kits
• IBMs Aglet, Objectspaces Voyager, General
  Magics Odyssey, Mitsbishis Concordia

4
Why WAP?

• Support Web-like applications in a wireless
  environment
• Limited bandwidth
• Less stable
• Less powerful terminals.
• Visit www.wapforum.org

5
WAP Specification

• Key components
• Programming/communication model
• XML-based markup language WML
• WMLScript scripting language
• Microbrowser (Usually Java-Based)
• Framework for wireless telephony applications
  (WTA)
• Most of the current wireless applications are
  created with a mixture of WML and Java Mobile
  Language
• A new development is the integration of
  Flash-based content through the Flash Lite
  player.
• Flash Lite is now supported through a number of
  3rd Generation Mobile Phones (3G) and Windows
  Mobile Devices (iPaq, Palm, etc.)

6
WAP Architecture (Fig. 9.2)
7
The WAP Model

• WAP Model

8
XML

• Tags can be defined using a Document Type
  Definition (DTD)
• XML is to represent the logical structure of
  documents
• Content and presentation format/style are
  separated
• Searching and retrieval of information is
  simplified
• XML searches return data more precisely
  associated with the query
• With Xlink, one can use bi-directional links
• The syntax for XML is strictly defined

9
DOM for Example Program
10
Application of XML for B2BE-commerce
11
Layered Structure for ebXML
12
XML Architecture
13
Widgets

• One of the biggest growth areas for web
  development (and e-commerce) is the introduction
  of Widgets.
• A Little History on the Widget...
• Some time in early 2000 Arlo Rose came up with an
  idea for a cool little application. It would use
  XML to structure images, and a scriptable
  language, like Perl, in such a way that someone
  who knew the basics of Perl could put together
  cool little mini-applications. The goal was that
  these mini-applications would just sit around on
  your desktop looking pretty, while providing
  useful feedback.

14
Widgets

• All he ever really wanted was to have a cool
  looking battery monitor and something that told
  him the weather, but he knew the possibilities
  for something like this could potentially be
  limitless.
• Fast forward a couple of years when Arlo began
  working with Perry Clarke at Sun Microsystems.
  Over lunch one afternoon Arlo gave Perry the
  basics of this dream app. Perry suggested that
  JavaScript would be far easier for people to
  digest. He was right. It's the basis for Flash's
  ActionScript, and Adobe's scripting engine for
  Photoshop. Of all the choices, JavaScript made
  the most sense. Shortly after that lunch, the two
  began to spend their nights and weekends making
  this thing a reality.
• A half year later it was ready for download on
  Mac OS X. Time flew by, Ed Voas joined the team
  and the Windows version was unveiled.

15
Widgets

• You can find and download the Yahoo! Widget
  Engine for free for either Windows of Mac OSX.
• You can find widgets for everything from
  e-commerce retail product searches, to language
  translators, to displaying local weather and
  sports scores.
• Not related at all to e-commerce, my favorite
  widgets recite phrases from cartoon characters.
• Gir from Invader Zim
• Bender from Futurama

16
Web Services

• What is a web service?
• Web services make software functionality
  available over the Internet so that programs like
  PHP, ASP, JSP, and CFML, and all our other
  favorite widgets can make a request to a program
  running on another server (a web service) and use
  that programs response in a website, WAP
  service, or other application.
• The principles behind web services are stunningly
  simple, and are nothing new in the world of
  distributed computing and the Internet.
• The web service provider defines a format for
  requests for its service and the response the
  service will generate a computer makes a request
  for the web services across the network the web
  service performs some action, and sends the
  response back
• This action might be retrieving a stock quote,
  finding the best price for a particular product
  on the net, saving a new meeting to a calendar,
  translating a passage of text to another
  language, or validating a credit card number.

17
Web Services

• The principles behind web services are stunningly
  simple, and are nothing new in the world of
  distributed computing and the Internet.
• The web service provider defines a format for
  requests for its service and the response the
  service will generate a computer makes a request
  for the web services across the network the web
  service performs some action, and sends the
  response back
• This action might be retrieving a stock quote,
  finding the best price for a particular product
  on the net, saving a new meeting to a calendar,
  translating a passage of text to another
  language, or validating a credit card number.
• Yes, there is an overlap with Widgets and Web
  Services as many are/do the same thing.

18
What Does This All Mean For E-Commerce?

• In a nutshell, it means that e-commerce is
  expanding from the typical Website Portal that
  became popular throughout the 90s.
• E-commerce applications are moving into cell
  phones, PDAs, and mini-applications to check on
  everything from inventory of items to tracking
  packages.