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MOWAHS A Study of Applications for Mobile Work SIF8094 - Software Engineering, Depth Study

22-11-2002 Eldrid Schei

Thale Christina Fritzner

MOWAHS A Study of Applications for Mobile Work

SIF8094 Fall 2002 i Schei & Fritzner

Abstract

The total number of remote workers in EU has increased in the period 1999 to 2002 from six percent to thirteen. This expansion of remote workers is one of the reasons that the project named Mobile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems (MOWAHS) was initiated at the Department of Computer and Information Science (IDI) at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. This thesis contributes to this project. The MOWAHS project will do research on how to support mobile workers using heterogeneous devices. Mobile work is defined as work done away from a traditional place of work or within the place of work but done away from their normal desk. This project gives a study of applications that can be loaded into mobile devices like Personal Digital Assistants (PDA), mobile phones or smart phones (a combination of PDA and mobile phone) for mobile work. Little work has been done on the field of mobile work and mobile devices. Some articles predict how the future of mobile devices will be. Other articles that we found document use of PDA among paperboys, in pest eliminations among vermin, in restaurants, in hospitals and at colleges. Our study of applications for mobile devices showed that there is a big amount of software available on the Internet. We have conducted a use case of Handyman which is an application that runs on PDAs and supports work of electricians. Five users of this program share their experience with it. To increase our understanding of how mobile devices with respect to mobile work an extended study is initiated and a questionnaire is developed. Further work on the study will be conducted in our diploma.


SIF8094 Fall 2002 ii Schei & Fritzner

Preface This project report contains the contribution from Eldrid Schei and Thale Christina Fritzner during autumn of 2002. The thesis is a study of applications for mobile devices for mobile work. The knowledge obtained during this study was an overview of what kind of application that exists for mobile devices and how they are used in relation to mobile work. In addition, this report contains a pilot questionnaire which will be used in a study that will be carried out next semester. We will use this project thesis as a prestudy to our diploma next spring. We would like to thank our advisors Alf Inge Wang and Carl-Fredrik Sørensen for providing a very interesting area for us to explore through the MOWAHS project. They did also provide a PDA and a mobile phone with java technology that we were so lucky to borrow. In addition, we are thankful for all comments and advise that we received throughout the work on this thesis. We will also thank Roar Storleer from the institution Inforsøk at NTNU that gave us advices on how to search for articles and books related to this area. We are grateful to Monica Divitini that on short notice contributed very helpful advices to the questionnaire. Ole Torvmark also deserve great thanks for technical support. Finally, we will thank Tim Bye at ePocket and five of their customers (Geir Bjerke at Lillehammer Elektro AS, Tore Reppesgård at Elektrisk Produktion AS, Runar Haltuff at Haltuff & Ihlebæk AS, Erik Stray at ELAJO and Svenn Åge Frogner at Tjøme El. Installasjon AS) for their contribution to our case study of Handyman. Eldrid Schei Thale Christina Fritzner Trondheim, Norway. November 22, 2002.


SIF8094 Fall 2002 iii Schei & Fritzner

Contents 1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 1

1.1 Motivation .................................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Problem definition...................................................................................................... 2 1.3 Project process............................................................................................................ 3 1.4 Readers guide ............................................................................................................. 3 1.5 Definition of terms ..................................................................................................... 4 1.6 Context ....................................................................................................................... 4

2 Prestudy............................................................................................................................. 7 2.1 Background information ............................................................................................ 7 2.2 Related work .............................................................................................................. 7

2.2.1 The Gartner categorization of applications ........................................................ 7 2.2.2 Survey on mobile computing technologies and applications ............................. 8 2.2.3 Use of PDA for paperboys ................................................................................. 8 2.2.4 Use of PDA in pest management ....................................................................... 8 2.2.5 Use of PDA in restaurants .................................................................................. 9 2.2.6 Use of PDA in hospital..................................................................................... 10 2.2.7 Use of PDA in college...................................................................................... 10 2.2.8 Nomadic work .................................................................................................. 11 2.2.9 Future forecast.................................................................................................. 11

2.3 Mobile devices ......................................................................................................... 13 2.3.1 PDA.................................................................................................................. 13 2.3.2 Mobile phones .................................................................................................. 18 2.3.3 Smart phone...................................................................................................... 20

3 Own contribution ........................................................................................................... 21 3.1 Survey of applications for mobile devices ............................................................... 21

3.1.1 Approach .......................................................................................................... 21 3.1.2 Data collecting.................................................................................................. 24 3.1.3 Results .............................................................................................................. 25 3.1.4 Discussion ........................................................................................................ 28 3.1.5 Categorisation of applications for mobile work............................................... 32

3.2 Case study ................................................................................................................ 34 3.2.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 34 3.2.2 Case study of Handyman.................................................................................. 34

3.3 Questionnaire ........................................................................................................... 44 3.3.1 Motivation ........................................................................................................ 44 3.3.2 Carrying out the survey .................................................................................... 44

4 Conclusion and further work ........................................................................................ 45 4.1 Summary .................................................................................................................. 45 4.2 Challenges of the future ........................................................................................... 45

5 References ....................................................................................................................... 47 Appendix A Results from the data collection ...................................................................... 51 Appendix B Verification of the amount of application....................................................... 68 Appendix C Customers of ePocket ....................................................................................... 69 Appendix D Questionnaire .................................................................................................... 70 Appendix E List of databases................................................................................................ 78 Appendix F Keywords from database search...................................................................... 80 Appendix G Customers of ePocket ....................................................................................... 81 Appendix H Glossary ............................................................................................................. 82


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List of figures Figure 1-1 A heterogeneous environment.................................................................................. 5 Figure 2-1: The detachable ear-piece. ...................................................................................... 12 Figure 2-2: Palm PDA med Palm OS....................................................................................... 15 Figure 2-3: Compaq PDA with Pocket PC OS. ....................................................................... 15 Figure 2-4: Psion PDA with EPOC OS.................................................................................... 16 Figure 2-5: Screenshots from Exter Log v.1.0. ........................................................................ 16 Figure 2-6: Screenshots from WorkOrder v.1.4....................................................................... 17 Figure 2-7: Screenshot from 4T Pet. ........................................................................................ 17 Figure 2-8: Screenshots from Mr. Mind Manager v.1.0. ......................................................... 17 Figure 2-9: Two Nokia mobile phones (3410 and 7210) with Java technology. ..................... 18 Figure 2-10: Screenshots from JacadoCrystal.......................................................................... 19 Figure 2-11: Screenshot from Black Widow............................................................................ 19 Figure 2-12: Screenshots from BMICalc. ................................................................................ 20 Figure 2-13: Nokia 9210i Communicator. ............................................................................... 20 Figure 3-1: Handyman’s main menu........................................................................................ 35 Figure 3-2: Screenshot of tasks. ............................................................................................... 36 Figure 3-3: Handyman reminders of important tasks............................................................... 36 Figure 3-4: Screenshot from HP Jornada 710/720, shows signing on the screen. ................... 37 Figure 3-5: Screenshot from a HP Jornada 710/720, shows the wordbook. ............................ 37 Figure 3-6: Screenshot that shows how to order products. ...................................................... 38 Figure 3-7: Screen shot form HP Jornada 710/720 that shows the hour overview.................. 38 Figure 3-8: System architecture of Handyman. ....................................................................... 39 Figure 4-1: Diagram with connectivity versus nomadicy. ....................................................... 46 Figure H0-1: The word GRAFITTI written in Graffiti ............................................................ 83 List of tables Table 3-1: Frequency and applications per category. ............................................................. 25 Table 3-2: Sites’ contribution to categorisation. ...................................................................... 27 Table 3-3: Rearranging data into larger categories. ................................................................. 30 Table 3-4: Recordings from the three largest sites................................................................... 31


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SIF8094 Fall 2002 1 Schei & Fritzner

1 Introduction This chapter will give some background information and motivation for carrying out this project. It also describes the time perspective, and the purpose of this project.

1.1 Motivation The total number of remote workers in EU has grown from six to thirteen percent in the period from 1999 to 2002 [46]. The number of subscribers of mobile phones has also increased in the same period in Norway. Even though the number of subscribers was already substantial it grew approximately 30 percent. In 2001, 3 201 554 people were mobile phone subscribers. That is 71% of the population [4]. With comparison, only approximately 30% of the population in the USA has a mobile subscription [44]. One reason for this growth can be the expansion of mobile devices like smart phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and mobile phones in the marked. A smart phone is a mobile device with both PDA and mobile phone capabilities. A PDA is a handheld computing device that contains applications like a word processor, calculation program, calendar and perhaps some communication possibilities. In Norway, 78 000 PDAs was sold in 2000 and 60 000 in 2001. The year 2002 sales are expected to be much lower [31]. Worldwide there were sold 13.1 millions units in 2001 [32]. Although Gartner has judged the mobile software to be over-hyped [24], companies such as Microsoft and Palm are struggling to gain market shares in the field of software for mobile devices. From the consumers view this extensive sale of handheld equipment is advantageous. Prices have become more reasonable and the amount of people that uses such equipment has increased, thus making the value of these products increasing due to Metcalfe’s law [2]: “The value of a network goes up as the square of the number of users”. MOWAHS (Mobile work across heterogeneous systems) is a research project at the Department of Computer and Information Science (IDI) at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). One of MOWAHS research challenges is to provide an efficient environment for helping people in mobile work. One of MOWAHS goals is to support cooperating transactions to hold work documents. Therefore documentation of use of mobile devices such as PDAs and mobile phones in the context of mobile work is an important task to accomplish in order to reach this goal. The presentation of MOWAHS continues in chapter 1.7.

Little research is done on the field mobile devices and mobile work. This report is a contribution to this field.



1.2 Problem definition We want to find out how mobile devices, in the light of mobile work, are used. Mobile work is work where the worker must change location in order to perform the work. There are many areas to be studied within the field of software for mobile devices, e.g. mobile work. Mobile devices can simplify this process of performing and coordinating mobile work. For example, consider an electrician doing his work. He must record each part he uses in order to bill the customer correctly. Usually this is solved by writing down on a paper the parts. Later, when back at the office a secretary rewrites the text from the paper into the billing system and then sends the bill to the customer. This is not an efficient process. Consider the electrician having a mobile phone with an integrated PDA. The type of parts used can be typed and the order sent immediately to the billing system. Then the bill can be sent automatically to the customer or the bill can be paid at the location of work. One way to study use of mobile devices in mobile work is to look at applications that support mobile work. In the context of the MOWAHS project we want to find out how mobile devices are used in mobile work. Therefore entertainment applications such as games are not a main concern in out study of applications. We want to do a study that gives background information for a more extensive study in which we hope to carry out in next term. As mobile devices have evolved, uses of them in mobile work have become common. In order to understand the processes that benefits from mobile devices, many issues arises:

In what way are mobile devices supportive or beneficial in the process of mobile work?

Which businesses and personnel use mobile devices (profession, sex, age)?

What tasks are supported by mobile devices?

Are there any common drawbacks in use of mobile device?

What types of software is used to support mobile work?

The problem definition can be summarized as:

In order to get a better understanding of the use of mobile devices in mobile work, we will explore the applications available for mobile devices. Later we will use this background information to do a more extensive study on the use of mobile devices in mobile work. The tasks we will accomplish are:

1) Investigate mobile work by: a. Looking at existing software for mobile devices and getting a grip of what types of

applications that exist b. Doing a case study of one application used in mobile work

2) Make a preliminary research instrument for a survey to achieve a more extensive investigation of mobile work



1.3 Project process During this project many tasks was completed. We studied software that could be loaded into a mobile device. Below is a list over tasks performed:

o First, we found out if similar studies had been carried out to avoid “inventing the wheel” again.

o We briefly studied the different types of mobile devices and looked at the software that usually comes with the devices.

o We studied applications available for mobile devices in order to understand what types of applications that exist on the marked.

o We performed a case study of one application. o In the end we made a pilot questionnaire based on the information we had achieved in

the former phases of the project, and the research challenges and the goals of MOWAHS

This was not a regular project. We neither tried to test a hypothesis nor develop an application. This report it therefore not built up as a technical report that contains documentation about prestudy, requirement specification, construction, implementation, user documentation and testing. This project is a study and the report reflects the results. This project can be looked upon as a preparation for the diploma thesis, which will be carried out next term. The project gave an introduction to the use of mobile devices in mobile work and we began the work of a survey. The reason why the survey is not completed is simply lack of time to perform a thorough study, and that the customers of this project only requested a questionnaire in order to initiate some further research on mobile work.

1.4 Readers guide This section describes briefly what the chapters contain. Chapter 2 is the prestudy and consists of three sections. Section 2.1 describes the approach we used when collecting background information related to this project. Section 2.2 provides related work on the topic mobile work and mobile devices. Section 2.3 contains a description of the mobile devices that we will focus on in this project. We will only consider mobile phones, PDAs and the combination of the two, smart phones. Chapter three contains our own contribution. It consists of three parts. The first part is a survey of applications for mobile devices and we present the approach and the results from the survey. The second part, section 3.2, describes a case study of Handyman which is an application used by electricians. The section 3.3 contains the work we have done in preparation of a study of mobile devices that is used in mobile work. We present a pilot questionnaire. Chapter four summarises the results and suggest future work. Chapter five contains a reference list. At the end the appendixes are located. These appendixes are referred to in the document. Appendix H is a glossary where all technical terms in this report are explained.



1.5 Definition of terms It seems like every author or other computer professional have their own definitions of words in the domain of mobile work. These definitions coincide more or less, but subtle differences exist. Some terms are overlapping, for example mobile work, nomadic work and telework. Thus, to clarify the use of various important terms and concepts the terms will be defined in Appendix H. Some frequently used terms are given below. Mobile work – in order to perform mobile work, the worker must change location. An example of a mobile work is the work performed by an electrician. He has to visit the customers to perform work. Nomadic work – work performed away from the usual place of work (if there are any). Mobile work can be looked upon as a subset of nomadic work. There are two types of nomadic work, global and local. Global nomadic work is work performed away from the building where usual place of work is located. Local nomadic work is work performed in the same building, but away from the usual work place. The degree of mobility in nomadic work varies. Nomadic work can be performed trough a telecommunication network, thus carried out at home instead of the office. Telework - use of telecommunication in order to work away from the usual place of work. Telework can be carried out at home, at another desk than the one usually used or in a mobile situation. The distinctions between telework and nomadic work are minor. Telework focuses on the capability to communication thought the telecommunication, but nomadic work is more focused on the fact that a worker is away from the usual place of work. Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) - a lightweight, handheld computer designed for use as a personal organizer. A PDA can have communication capabilities. Most often they support features among other things graffiti style data entry and personal information management. A typical PDA has no keyboard, relying instead on special hardware and pen-based computer software to enable the recognition of handwritten input, which is entered on the surface of the touch-sensitive screen. [57].

1.6 Context This project thesis is at part of a larger project called MObile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems (MOWAHS), running at IDI, NTNU [3]. MOWAHS is a basic research project supported by the Norwegian Research Council in the IKT- 2010 program [1]. The MOWAHS project is divided in two parts: process support for mobile users using heterogeneous devices (PC, PDA, mobile phones) and support for cooperating transactions. This thesis is supposed to give empirical information to the first part. This project will give a short introduction to what the PDAs and mobile phones can support. The document will also contribute with a study of related work. This work gives an overview of how mobile devices can support the process of mobile work. The MOWAHS project identifies the increased use of mobile devices, where people are distributed over several locations and time zones. Mobile devices make it possible to share documents and work plans. There is still a problem of the heterogeneity of tools, equipment



(laptops, PDAs, mobile phones), synchronization (of mobile devices with partly lacking connectivity) and work. This is what the picture of Figure 1-1 [3] are trying to show. Here, different kind of technologies and people are distributed around the world trying to carry out work.

Figure 1-1 A heterogeneous environment

The MOWAHS group wants to establish a functional, innovative, cheap and flexible technology platform that quickly can lead to useful results. Based on this, the MOWAHS project has three main goals:

1. Helping to understand and to continuously assess and improve workprocesses in virtual organizations.

2. Providing a flexible, common work environment to execute and share real work processes and their artefacts, applicable on a variety of electronic devices (from big servers to PDAs).

3. Disseminating the results to colleagues, students, companies, and the community at large.

To achieve these goals, work will be needed on empirical studies. This project will contribute with some of this information. We will provide a study of software that is available for PDAs and mobile phones with Java technologies. We will also present a case study of the



application Handyman made for PDAs and explain how it is used mobile work. We will start the work of a larger study which we hope will be performed in the next term. By making a pilot questionnaire we hope to document use of mobile devices in mobile work.



2 Prestudy The purpose of the prestudy is to illuminate areas related to mobile work. This chapter describes the approach of finding information for our project and presents information about related work. The last section contains a description of the mobile devices we have focused on in this project.

2.1 Background information We knew nothing about PDAs and mobile work at the beginning of the project. None of us had ever had a PDA in our hands before. We wanted to find articles about the use of mobile devices in mobile work. We searched in different databases to find papers that had been published in this field. Before we started the search, we attended a course held by Roar Storleer at Infosøk. Infosøk is an institution at NTNU that are specialised at searching for articles in different databases. This course gave us an insight to how to effectively search with correct keywords. Roar Storleer helped us with identifying keywords to find papers about mobile work. He also gave us a list of databases with articles from the field of computer science. Use of these databases was free of charge. We also considered databases that charged a fee, but none of them was of interest to us. BibSys is the library service offered from the Norwegian Universities [33]. It offers access to several databases that contains key information about articles and books. Some of them also offer downloads of articles. We used BibSys and other databases when searching for articles. Appendix E gives a list over the different databases and brief description of what they contain. When searching for articles and books we used the keywords listed in Appendix F. We made combinations of them to limit the searches. We found a few articles that contained information that was interesting to us. These were mostly case studies about how PDAs and mobile phones are used in different types of mobile work. Information from these articles is written in the section 2.2.

2.2 Related work This section gives an introduction on former contribution on mobile work and mobile devices. Sections 2.2.3 to 2.2.7 are case studies of the use of PDAs in mobile work.

2.2.1 The Gartner categorization of applications Gartner is a research and advisory firm that continuously analyses the markets. In [29] they suggest a categorization of applications for mobile devices. They propose three different categories:



The first category is mobile applications. By mobile applications we mean applications for mobile devices. This is the broadest definition and includes applications for laptops, PDAs, smart phones and specialized devices. They can operate connected to a network online or totally offline or in both modules.

The second category is a specific type of the first. Devices communicate over wireless communication such as infrared, Bluetooth, wireless LAN or cellular network rather than over a wire.

The third category is called Wireless Internet Applications where a microbrowser on a smart phone or a PDA is always online, connected to a server over wireless transmission such as global system for mobile communication (GSM) or code division multiple access(CDMA).

This categorization is reflected in our survey on applications for mobile devices (section 3.1) and in our preparation of a greater survey on of mobile devices (section 3.3).

2.2.2 Survey on mobile computing technologies and applications A survey on mobile computing technologies and applications was done in 1995. The goal of the survey was to identify major academic and non-academic research institutions in the area of mobile computing [25]. Here Anupam Joshi et al. describe the contents of 150 articles that were related to mobile computing. They identify seven categories for applications: multimedia, field service, PDAs, health care, industrial, managerial and sales.

2.2.3 Use of PDA for paperboys SINTEF Tele and data are doing a project together with newspaper deliverers in Norway [13]. In Oslo and Vestfold 25 paperboys are equipped with a mobile phone and a PDA. The PDA is equipped with an electronically delivery book (eBudbok). eBudbok substitutes the handwritten note book that the paperboy up to now has used. In the morning the paperboy downloads today’s route. Through Bluetooth he connects to the newsagent and gets an updated list of the subscribers. The list shows all the subscribers with respect to the route. PDA increases the efficiency of the work and PDA makes it easier to keep track of changes made on the subscribers’ side. SINTEF has worked with the user-interface, the dynamic route planner and the geographic information system in the project. The next step is to expand the program with utilities like a map to help a new carrier to find the best route.

2.2.4 Use of PDA in pest management The most important reasons for introducing mobile devices into an area of work are to save money and time. Ecolab Inc.'s pest elimination division in St. Paul, Minneapolis [14] experienced this. The company permanent eliminates rodents and insects from restaurants, hotels, food and beverage plants across the USA. Before, the company had to fill out paper forms for multi-part invoices, customer service reports and government regulatory information. Since the



company has more than 70,000 service locations, this will accumulate a lot of paper every day. The company had to process calls from customers, then sort and mail multi-page forms to every field technician in the USA. This process made it impossible to have consistent data at any time. When the company introduced the use of mobile computing technology for managing a variety of critical administrative tasks, Ecolab got rid of all of the manual paperwork. The employees can now fill in the forms on the PDA screen. At the end of each day, field associates electronically send all of their customer invoices and service reports to the national support center via hand-held computers, allowing the center to quickly process the information to the next day. There was no longer a need for technicians to fill out laborious weekly government reports on pesticide usage because the new application does it for them automatically. These technicians improved their personal productivity by more than 10%, saved $2 million in annual costs and reduced the processing time for reports from one month to a day.

2.2.5 Use of PDA in restaurants The restaurant La Casa Roja in the town Puerto del Carmen in Spain, used PDAs to support the management of the restaurant. The application ECG and the synchronizing program Q were installed on the PDA. The restaurant was equipped with a wireless LAN for communication between the PDA and the management system. Only two head waiters were equipped with a PDA. The program offered functionalities so that the waiters could register the orders on the PDA and send it to the kitchen. If the customer wanted to know which type of wine that were left, the PDA could be used to look up which wine and spirits the restaurant had in stock. The PDA could also show what the different tables had ordered. So if a customer visited the restaurant and wanted to drink the same wine as the day before, the waiter could find out which wine the customer drank. Other functionalities offered were bill making and making reservations of tables. A system from Boca Raton [15] quest to better understand and serve guests. When doing a study the personnel from a restaurant had to sit by the front door asking customer to fill out comment cards and then give them discount. Between 15 and 20 customers responded every day. When the electronic comment card (PDA) from Boca Raton was introduced, a PDA was given to each table as part of the normal service routine. The restaurant Stuart Bare Bones increased the respondent rate to between 75 and 115 per day. Earlier only very pleased or disappointed customers answered the questionnaire. After the introduction of electronic comments card, more nuanced answers where given from the guest. The customer ranked the food item and service personal through the questionnaire. If the guest ranks below a preset "alert" threshold, a wireless transmitter pages a manager or a designated employee. Customer's dissatisfaction or praise to specific waiters was scanned and this service-specific feedback helped in recognizing training or mentoring issues. The results from such a survey can give important feed-back. For example did Stuart Bare Bones experience low ratings related to beverage service. One reason for this could be that the customer found the time between ordering and receiving very long. Therefore they added a bartender during peak periods. The PDA was also used to solicit employees to comment their relationship with managers and co-workers. After analyzing the answers the employees got



modified daytime schedules and the restaurant manager added more wait staff and included more support such as food runners to decrease the stress the employees faced.

2.2.6 Use of PDA in hospital ePpocket (see chapter 3.2.2.1) has a product called JetRek. This program improves the efficiency when a physician makes a requisition. Information about the patients, for example name, date of birth and preliminary diagnosis are fetched automatically from the patient administration system to the PDA in advance of seeing the patient. After seeing the patient a requisition is made with point- and click technology directly on the screen. During the next synchronisation the requisition will be “emptied” into the patient administration system. The application can also be used for other purposes such as requisitions for blood test, x-ray, prescription, physiotherapy and it also offers control functions that correct and complete submission of the forms.

One of four physicians in the USA uses a PDA according to a Harris Interactive survey [18]. Of those, 70% incorporate PDAs into their practice, mostly for clinical and drug reference material, but one third of the doctors who do not use a PDA to record patient notes expect to do so by 2006. According to [18] physicians will embrace technology that fits into the pocket of a physician’s coat. Dr. John Halamka, Assistant Dean of Harvard Medical School and CIO of Caregroup, Inc. in Boston [19] says that "we have deployed a PDA solution that in just six months has eliminated $150000 in paper costs and reduced the need for data entry personnel, as well as significantly improved our paper-based process. The solution has provided us with quality data and increased our form completion of a course, to 80% delivered in near real-time".

2.2.7 Use of PDA in college At the college Brekkeby in Norway 45 teachers have a PDA [42]. “It is a relief to drop those school registers”: says Wenche Aasen, teacher at Brekkeby. The earlier absence system worked like this: Each subject teacher registers the absence in their class on a paper. This paper where given to the class teacher and he recorded the absence in the absence protocol. Often the protocol was lost. This was a very inefficient process. Today teachers register absence, grades and other information about a student. The teachers have access to a personal calendar and a simple word processor on the PDA. The system sums up and gives overviews for absence and grades for each student. The teachers synchronize the PDA with the system at certain intervals. “We want to expand this system and get a wireless LAN. Then we could send and receive e-mails as well”: says Knut Inge Skifjeld, teacher and system administrator of the school. In the rest of the country, only 27 schools use PDA daily.



2.2.8 Nomadic work Nomade 2007 is a research project initiated by Telenor FoU. The project does research on mobile work. They define nomadic work to be work done away from a permanent work place [43]. Due to Nomade 2007 there are three degrees of nomadic work [12]. The workers that belong to the first category of nomadic workers are those who work less than 12 hours away from the office per week. Members of the second category works 13-28 hours per week away from the office, and members of the last category work more than 29 hours away from the office per week. The members of the last category are usually in the entrepreneur business.

2.2.9 Future forecast Throughout the last two decades the evolution of wireless devices has been drastically. In 1981 a mobile phone weighed 15 kg, today’s mobile phones on the marked weigh less than 0.2 kg [4]. Many researchers have tried to predict the future for mobile devices. The sections below try to sum up some of the predictions.

2.2.9.1 Predicted expansion of mobile devices There are many analytics that try to predict the future. The forecasts are more or less consistent. The following are predictions about mobile phones and PDAs:

Mobile Commerce World [5] reports that the number of user of mobile phones will be around one billion in the second quarter of 2002. The number will continue to grow.

Ericsson [5] thinks that 400 million mobile phones will be sold in the world during 2002. The number of users that can access the internet while mobile will be 40 millions.

“Mobile computing will grow beyond PDAs in the next few years” states Manhasset August 5, 2002 in a paper called “Network in the palm of your hand” [27].

Growth rates in expansion of communicating devices are exponential. [44] points out that it took 38 years until the radio achieved 50 millions users, whereas 13 years for television, 10 years for cable television and 5 years for Internet. Thus the dissemination rates increased for each new device. Therefore the expected number of users of mobile devices that support Internet increase rapidly.

Although these numbers are about future use of either mobile phones or PDAs, some predicts that the two devices will soon migrate into one device. A survey from the analysis institute Motient [26] states that although the costumers also desire features that require the PDA to be online, such as sending email, the most important features for them is calendar, address book and the possibility to use it for work related programs. Therefore Motient predicts that PDA and mobile phone will converge into all-in-one mobile device. In addition they predict that the differences between PDAs and laptops will blur [27].

2.2.9.2 Trends in the usage of mobile devices Wirthlin Worldwide [20] has conducted an extensive survey to provide insights to mobile communications at work and to predict trends in its usage. The survey is conducted by



telephone interviews and the respondents were vice-presidents (sales, IT or marketing), presidents or chief executive officers (CEO). On an average the respondent stated that 16.8% of the employee in their company felled into the category “very mobile, traveling or on the go most of the time”. The category “somewhat mobile, traveling about half the time” and “little mobile, traveling about a quarter of the time” made up for 37.2% of the employee. On the other hand, employees that were “not very mobile” and “not mobile at all” made up to a little more than 45%. These numbers shows that the average respondent represents companies with both non-mobile and very mobile workers. This fact makes the survey very trustful. The survey found that 84% of the asked persons believed that the workforce will develop more needs for mobile communication. 71% thought that the users with the greatest need for Web-enabled phones and/or wireless PDA will be sales personnel. 59% thought executives and senior management would have greatest need for handhelds and 46% thought that technical service personnel had the most use for PDA and mobile phones.

2.2.9.3 Development of mobile phones A research conducted by Aaron Marcus and Eugene Chen [21] tries to design a suite of product ideas that could be incorporated into specific products over next few years. The authors try to develop conceptual user-interface designs for future wireless information devices. The challenge is to distinguish essential features from features that the user can wait with until she can access a desktop machine. The result from this project was the conceptual design for a “wireless information device” (WID) named Mob-I.

For a worker, a common task is to receive information by phone and manually transfer it to an appointment book. This task is very difficult to transfer to a smart-phone, where the user have to move the device away from the ear to be able to write. Mob-I was therefore designed to have a detachable ear-piece (Figure 2-1). This piece can pop out of the device and uses wireless communication with the device. Separating the ear attachment allow the user to perform visual tasks, such as taking notes during calls without using a speaker which comprises privacy. By wearing the ear-piece the user will be notified of calls and reminders privately and silently.

Figure 2-1: The detachable ear-piece.

Other challenges the authors identified were the “input and output issue”. Handheld devices have often tedious text input. Two solutions for this problem were constructed. The first technique gave the mobile device the ability to contextualize the users input. If the device could sense the user context, the device could automatically assist the user as much as



possible. This saved time and reduced the need for explicit input. For example could the Mob-I indicate the status of the person to be called (e.g. available, in-a-meeting, driving), thus avoiding useless attempts to call a person. Mob-I helps the user to find information about the person he speaks with by adapting the menu to include shortcuts for making an appointment with him and looking up his address.

The other solution to the “input and output issue” is location awareness. Through GPS and Bluetooth technologies the Mob-I will utilize knowledge of a user’s location thus reminding a user, at the appropriate time and place, when she can do certain task. For instance, Mob-I could remind a user to call a customer when she arrives at the office, ask a customer to pay a bill when she visits their office or talk to a colleague as soon as he gets back in the office, using his phone-identifier.

2.3 Mobile devices A mobile device is simply a device that can be carried around from one place to another. However, in this study the mobile devices we consider are PDAs, mobile phones and a combination of these two (smart phones). Laptops and similar devices will be disregarded even though they are characterized as mobile devices. There are three main reasons for this. First, this is a study of software and devices developed without the ability to download software are of very little interest. Examples of these are barcode readers, GPS readers, cameras and measurement equipments. Second, for laptops, size and the operative system limits quick and easy use. A laptop can not be hold in one hand, it takes quite some time to turn it on, not lightweight and therefore not suited for mobile work. Third, software for laptops is the same as software for PCs and has been well studied before. This chapter describes the types of mobile devices we consider in this report. Each device is elaborated with a definition, a description of important features, an overview of software that the device usually is equipped with, and some examples of applications that can be downloaded into the device.

2.3.1 PDA PDA is an abbreviation for personal digital assistant. In this section we define what a PDA is and describe what features a typical PDA offers. We also give some examples of applications that can be downloaded to a PDA.

2.3.1.1 Definition of PDA The encyclopaedia in [6] defines a PDA the following way: personal digital assistant(PDA), lightweight, hand-held computer designed for use as a personal organizer with communications capabilities. A typical PDA has no keyboard, relying instead on special hardware and pen-based computer software to enable the recognition of handwritten input, which is entered on the surface of the touch-sensitive screen.



2.3.1.2 Standard applications on a PDA All the major PDAs is delivered with some set of standard programs. These programs store data that users normally would write down in an address book, a calendar, a notepad or a to-do list. These include addresses, appointments, phone numbers, important places, dates and time such as appointments and anniversaries, and lists that keeps track of everyday tasks. Most PDAs allows the user to configure the PDA to remind them of important events, like calling a colleague at twelve next Wednesday. Most PDAs offer functionality like a calculator and e-mailing programs. It is possible to send or receive e-mail from the PDA, but if it does not have a network card or another transmitter you only send and receive when synchronizing with a computer. Another program that is standard is the synchronization program (sometimes called Hot Sync) that makes it possible to back up and exchange data with a desktop PC. There are many ways to use a PDA, the example above shows only a small part of the capabilities of a PDA. A PDA comes with an operating system, basic hardware and accessories. The accessories can for example be wireless modems, portable keyboards, extra storage capacity that can for example be used for MP3 or video files, microphone for digital sound recording and Bluetooth expansion card to wirelessly link the handheld to any other Bluetooth-enabled device located within 10 meter radius. Some PDAs have integrated devices such as integrated camera, infrared port, sound, shake, backlit, global positioning service device (GPS) and colour. It is possible to buy or download software for the PDAs. This makes it easy for the consumer to configure the PDA to meet his desires. Therefore it can be used in a wide range of areas. A medical professional can use it for patient data management and calculation purposes, while a finance professional would use it for mortgage calculations and keeping track of stock information and billing accounts. PDAs can be divided in two basic styles: Models that are accessible via touch-sensitive screen and larger models that have keyboards. There are tree main operating systems:

Palm OS Pocket PC Symbian OS

Palm OS is used exclusively with screen-based Palm units as well as their Handspring and Sony clones. Figure 2-2 shows a Palm PDA with Palm OS.



Figure 2-2: Palm PDA med Palm OS.

Pocket PC, also known as Microsofts’s Windows CE operating system, is the operative system in screen-based PDAs made by Casio, Compaq (see Figure 2-3) and Hewlett-Packard. These PDAs come usually with programs like Microsoft Pocket Word, Excel, Outlook, Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player.

Figure 2-3: Compaq PDA with Pocket PC OS.

EPOC is a deprecated term and refer to the Symbian OS. Symbian is owned by Ericsson, Nokia, Matsushita (Panasonic), Motorola, Psion, Siemens and Sony Ericsson. Symbian OS is found primarily on Psion keyboard-based units [45]. A Psion PDA with an Epoc OS is shown in Figure 2-4 [34].



Figure 2-4: Psion PDA with EPOC OS.

2.3.1.3 Examples of applications We will now give four examples of applications for PDAs. The applications are downloaded for free from sites offering applications for Palm OS. All four are applications that can be used with Palm OS. The examples are given to show that applications can be both basic and complex, useless and useful. ExerLog v.1.0 This is an application that makes it easy to track and log exercises [41]. Figure 2-5 shows screenshots from the application.

Figure 2-5: Screenshots from Exter Log v.1.0.

WorkOrder v.1.4 WorkOrder has been designed to assist any type of field technician or repairman in documenting a service call, especially PC Technicians [35]. It walks the technician through the steps required to complete the work order. The main purpose is to keep a trail of repairs both for the home office to invoice from, as well as for the technician to refer to in future visits. Figure 2-6 shows screenshots from the application.



Figure 2-6: Screenshots from WorkOrder v.1.4.

4T Pet 4T Pet is a database application for tracking Pet information [36]. Each entry lets you enter a pet's name, date of birth, age, sex, weight, colour, breed and other information including veterinarian information and medical history and much more. Figure 2-7 shows a screenshot from the application.

Figure 2-7: Screenshot from 4T Pet.

Mr.Mind Manager v.1.0 Mr. Mind Manager v.1.0 can store everything you have in mind but used to forget, for example ideas for projects, trips, surprises, thoughts and goals [37]. Figure 2-8 shows screenshots from the application.

Figure 2-8: Screenshots from Mr. Mind Manager v.1.0.

Both ExerLog and Mr. Mind Manager are applications for personal use. The usefulness of them is likely very small since standard applications such as notebook and calendar can offer the same functionality as them. Work Order and 4T Pet are applications that can be useful in mobile work.



2.3.2 Mobile phones This section defines a mobile phone and describes what features a typical mobile phone offers. We also give some examples of applications that can be downloaded to mobile phones with Java technology.

2.3.2.1 Definition of mobile phones The encyclopedia in [7] defines a mobile phone the following way: Mobile phone is a cordless telephone linked to a digital cellular radio network. Mobile phones can connect to the Internet via a datacard, which converts computer data into a form that can be passed over the network and vice versa.

2.3.2.2 Standard applications on a mobile phone Today’s mobile phones are very small and provide limited functionality. They are usually equipped with basic features like alarm clock, phone book, calculator, SMS and of course the ability to make phone calls. In addition, some phones can send and receive small simple icons and ringing tones through SMS. The mobile phone gives the opportunity to write down appointments and other kind of small notes. Games are usually a part of the standard applications. Wireless application protocol (WAP) has also become more common the last two years [48]. Some mobile phones have an operating system that allows more advanced features. These features can be picture editing, multimedia messaging (MMS), polyphonic ringing tones, Bluetooth that support both data and audio connections, integrated digital camera, photo album for storing pictures, temperature reading, currency calculator, chat, voice recorder, radio listening, MP3 player and common e-mail functionality from computer. Today, few mobile phones have the ability to download software. Traditionally, mobile phones have come with a limited set of pre-installed applications and no applications are added later. This trend is changing. For example did Nokia recently present their new models, and a majority of those phones were Java-enabled (see Figure 2-9). Java technology includes two elements: a programming language and an application environment in which programs written in the Java language can be executed. With Java technology a mobile phone can download and run applications. Nokia's mainstream phones such as Nokia 3410 and 7210 have 120 - 150 Kbytes memory for storing Java applications. Since the maximum size of downloadable Java applications is restricted to 30 Kbytes, the phone user can have up to five Java applications stored in the phone memory [10]. This is not necessary true for other mobile phones. SL 45i produced by Siemens can install an expansion card of 128 MB [49].

Figure 2-9: Two Nokia mobile phones (3410 and 7210) with Java technology.



2.3.2.3 Examples of applications We will now give three examples of applications for mobile phones. All three are applications that can be downloaded into mobile phones with Java technology. They all support personal needs and are of little use in mobile work. The two first are games and the third calculates Body mass index. The applications are very simple, but small displays and little memory in the mobile phone limits the complexity of the applications. JacadoCrystal JacadoCrystal is an application that answers any question [38]. Just enter a question into the textbox, look into the magic JacadoCrystal and get an answer. JacadoCrystal is just a game and the developers warn users of relying on it solely when taking important decisions. Figure 2-10 show screenshots from the application.

Figure 2-10: Screenshots from JacadoCrystal.

Black Widow Black Widow is a game where the player takes the role of a male spider desperately trying to avoid the attentions of the notorious black widow [39]. The little male can move along strands of its partner's web, but cannot escape safely until it has travelled over all the strands, which causes the web to break. The black widow is in hot pursuit, so the little male needs to be quick and careful to outsmart it and get away, travelling over all the strands, turning them white before a level is completed. The black widow can be momentarily stunned if necessary, and fruits appear on the web every few seconds which, if collected, provide extra points. Points are awarded depending on speed and difficulty setting, and extra lives and stun charges can be gained. Figure 2-11 show a screenshot from the game.

Figure 2-11: Screenshot from Black Widow.

BMICalc BMICalc calculates your Body Mass Index (BMI) based on your weight and height [40]. Your BMI is a helpful indicator of obesity and underweight in adults. BMI is used to screen, monitor and detect risk of health or nutritional disorders. BMI alone is not diagnostic and other data must be used to determine if a high BMI is associated with increased risk of disease or death. Figure 2-12 show screenshots from the application.



Figure 2-12: Screenshots from BMICalc.

2.3.3 Smart phone This section defines a smart phone and describes what features it typically offers. A smart phone can also be called Hybrid telephone and Communicator. The downloadable applications for a smart phone are the same as for PDA or Java enabled mobile phones.

2.3.3.1 Definition of a smart phone It is not always easy to categorise a handheld device as either a PDA or a mobile phone. Some devices must be looked upon as a combination of both and are what we call smart phones. These devices join the PIM functionality of a PDA with the connectivity of a mobile phone.

2.3.3.2 Standard applications on a smart phone Smart phones have all the functionality that you expect from both a PDA and a mobile phone. In addition, they can have features like fax and Internet. The smart phone usually supports the most commonly used PC office applications such as Microsoft Word and Excel. Nokia 9210i Communicator (see Figure 2-13) is a smart phone. It gives access to Internet, e-mail, video, spreadsheet, word processor, calendar, presentation viewer and fax. The phone does also support Flash, therefore it is possible to run animations, cartoons, games and multimedia shows. It has a big screen (compared to an ordinary mobile phone or PDA) and keyboard.

Figure 2-13: Nokia 9210i Communicator.



3 Own contribution To study applications for mobile devices we wanted to study those available from provides on the Internet and then thoroughly study one application. This chapter shows how we accomplished the study. The first part describes a survey of applications for mobile devices. Here we found approximately 50 000 applications of 26 websites. The second part is a case study of the application Handyman. Handyman is an application that supports electricians in their daily work. The last section contains the work we have performed as a preparation of a future study of mobile devices used in mobile work.

3.1 Survey of applications for mobile devices Mobile computing is the use of computers in a non-static environment [25]. Applications that can be downloaded to mobile devices have been developed since the introduction of them. PDA was introduced in 1993 [11]. This means that PDAs are well-established devices that have been used in everyday life for a decade. The amount and type of software available for PDAs reflect this. Applications that can be downloaded to mobile phones have a somehow different history. Downloading of applications to mobile phones has become possible with the introduction of Java enabled mobile phones. Java-enabled mobile phones were released in 2001 [9]. Due to the immaturity of this field only a few applications for mobile phones have been developed. Most of them are games [55]. The fact that mobile phones often have a small display, limited memory and battery, are challenging for development of user-friendly applications for mobile phones. Software for mobile devices is found in software stores, computer stores, at the Internet and at different software developers. Some software vendors only focus on software for mobile devices and some focus both on software for stationary computers and mobile devices. Whether the mobile market will be a separate market or just a niche within other software markets is still a question the research analysts try to answer [24]. This fact is reflected when buying software for mobile devices. Some providers of software do not distinguish software for mobile devices and stationary computers. One of the goals of this project is to get an overview of software for mobile phones and PDAs, therefore we have carried out a survey on that topic. We based the survey on Internet sites that offered software for mobile devices. Here we simply counted applications that belonged to some predefined categories we had defined in advance.

3.1.1 Approach In this section we describe the survey methodology. We consider the sources of information and how we collected the data.



3.1.1.1 Site selection This survey was performed using sites on the Internet that provided software for mobile devices. The sites were selected using certain criteria that are described below. We found these sites by searching on Google.com for the phrase “handheld software download”. Then we selected the first 33 hits with the following limitations:

Each site must have a different domain name. Each site must in total offer more that 40 applications. Each site must be written in English.

When looking at the resulting sites, we discovered some sites with some properties:

Two sites that offered categorisation of their software, offered software both for mobile devices and for desktops PC. Therefore it was impossible to distinguish applications for PDAs and mobile phones, and applications for desktop PCs. Thus these two sites provided data only in terms of categorisation.

Five sites had no categorisation. These sites therefore offered data of little interest to us. They neither offered data to the categorisation nor the counting of applications.

None of the sites offered similar categorisation. This means that we used 28 sites when investigating categorisation, and 26 sites when counting applications that belonged to these categories.

3.1.1.2 Predefining the categories Given the sites, we needed some categorisation to organize the software scanning. We picked out categories represented on as many sites as possible and selected some of them to become a so-called predefined category. Totally we picked out 16 predefined categories. The purpose of the predefined categories was to count applications found under that same category name in a site. Here follows an overview of the 16 predefined categories and a description of synonymous category names we also accept into each category. Internet, network and communication All category names that contain words like internet, network and communication or synonyms to them belong here. Examples of related words are fax, email, ftp, phone and connectivity. Business and financial Categories that have names like business, financial, bank, trade, bill and accounting belong to this category. Other words related to were also accepted, but not confused with the next category, Productivity. From investigating those sites using productivity and business as a category name, we see that these two terms often are sub categories of each other. But since they both are frequent, we decided to leave them as two separate categories, and discuss the similarities when interpreting the data.



Productivity Only categories named productivity are accepted into this category. Security Security and encryption are terms accepted in this category. This can be looked upon as a type of enhancement, but is treated as a separate category. Multimedia Multimedia, graphics, sound, video, image, audio and other related words are accepted into this category. Enhancement Terms that can be related to enhancement of the handheld device are accepted here. This type of software is also called indirect software because it is not necessarily visible to the user. In the context of handheld devices, this is software that increases the usability of the devices. The software can not be used directly. An example is a program that increases the quality of the display. Science All words that can be related to science are accepted into this category. The words can be a domain such as astronomy or engineering, or a task such as convert or calculator. Words related to the category Medicine and health were not categorised into this category. Medicine and health Patient, drug, health, medicine, nutrition and other medicine and health related words are accepted into this category. Database Only categories that contain the word database are accepted here. Games Categories named game or entertainment are accepted here. Development and tools Categories with names synonymous with development and tool are accepted here. Education The word study and education are accepted here. Translation and books Category names related to books, documents, language and translation are accepted here. Notes and handwriting Categories that have names such as handwriting or a description about taking notes are accepted into this category. Travel Only categories containing the word travel was accepted here.



Utilities Only categories named utility or miscellaneous are accepted here. The reason is that the interpretation of these words can be very different from site to site. These are wide terms that can be used about any subject.

3.1.2 Data collecting The data collection was registered from the 33 sites. Most of the sites had organised the software in categories and we counted applications that belonged to the categories that matched one of our predefined categories. All the sites had different categorisations of their software. To organise and simplify the data collecting we followed the rules written below. The reason for this rough counting was our need for a rough overview. In this study it was too time consuming to look at each application and put it into a correct category.

1. If a site had two categories that would be accepted under the same predefined category, we recorded both into the same predefined category. If a site fro example had the two categories Games and Entertainment we would record both into our category Game.

2. If a site had a quasi-synonymous category as for example Drug guide, we recorded it into the predefined category, hereby the Medicine category. This means that the category name of a site needed not to be exactly the words defined in last section. Synonymous or quasi-synonymous categories were recorded as the predefined categories.

3. We accepted a category where one of the words in the category name matches at least one word from the predefined category. For example Navigation and travel is recorded into the Travel category.

4. When counting applications in a category, we disregarded the contents of this category. We did not look at each application to see if it seemed correctly categorised. If it contained sub categories, we would count applications of each subcategory and add them together. If the sub category seem like a wrongly categorised such as if Travel was a sub category to Games, we would count it anyway. The only data that mattered in a main category, was the category name at the top level and the number applications (leaf nodes) belonging to that category.

5. Some sites will have the operating system of the handheld device as the top category. In such cases we will go into each OS and record the categories and number of applications belonging to the category. If there is different categorisation in the different OSs we use the union of them and add all applications of one category together.

6. One application can be counted many times. Given a site, there is no guarantee that an application is only located under one category. An application may be counted many times if it is found in more than one category of a site. Also, duplicate applications might exist at two sites. When counting we did not check if duplicate applications existed in two different sites, it is counted as two separate applications.

7. If a site offers many versions of the same applications, we counted each version. When counting in this rough way, especially point 6 is a source for increasing the error in the data. Therefore we performed an extra check to find the factor of data overload. We picked out eight applications and recorded how many of the sites that offered those applications. This gave an indication of how many applications that really exist [8].



3.1.3 Results This section describes the results we achieved from investigating the 33 sites. The data collected can be seen from different angles. The results are elaborated and further discussed in 3.1.4.

3.1.3.1 Frequency of categories and applications The core of the results we achieved from counting applications in sites is shown in Table 3-1. The column label Frequency shows how many sites that recorded that category one or more times. The column label Applications shows how many applications that we found that belonged to that category. As we mentioned in section 3.1.1.2, applications counted here are only those that are categorised under this category. Therefore applications found in any of the five sites that had no categorisation, are not counted in this dataset. The average number frequency per category is 13.8 (221/16). In other words this means that in average each category was represented on approximately 14 sites. The average number of applications per category is 5833 (93341/16). And the average number of applications counted per site is 3590 (93341/26). There are some comments we can do about Table 3-1. Games was the category represented at most sites. In fact, 93% (26/28) of all sites had a category called Games or similar. 21.6% (20184/93341) of all applications counted belonged to this category. At the bottom we find the category Notes and handwriting. Here 10.7% (3/28) of all sites had a category called Notes and handwriting or similar. Only 0.05% (53/93341) of all applications counted belonged to this categorisation. This indicated that we deal with a very skew distribution of applications versus frequency. Table 3-1: Frequency and applications per category.

Frequency Applications Games 26 20180 Utility 24 8471 Business and financial 23 8432 Internet, network and communication

18 4109

Multimedia 17 3261 Travel 15 7121 Translation and books 15 5994 Medicine and health 14 4175 Science 13 2842 Development 12 2058 Education 11 9757 Enhancement 9 4389 Database 9 3396 Productivity 8 9055 Security 4 48 Notes and handwriting 3 53 Total: 221 93341



3.1.3.2 Sites recording of data

To get an idea of what fraction of applications of a site we have counted, Table 3-2 shows the percentage of categories that we have recorded in the column label Percentage of categories counted. The label All categories at site means the total number of categories that the site offered. The label Categories that are counted in predefinition means how many of the categories on a site that matched one of our predefined categories. The last column shows the number of applications counted on that site. The average of All categories at site is 12. The average for Categories that are counted in predefinition is 8. The average percentage of categories matched is 73%. We can see from Table 3-1 that the minimum percentage of categories counted is 54%. Section 3.1.4.5 contains a calculation of the total amount of applications counted.



Table 3-2: Sites’ contribution to categorisation.

All categories at site

Categories that are counted in the predefinition

Percentage of categories counted

Number of applications counted

http://software.palm.com 14 8 57 12408 http://www.pdastreet.com 11 9 82 18 http://www.penreader.com 6 5 83 201 http://www.collectivemed.com 7 6 86 220 http://www.pdacentral.com 20 13 65 5504 http://computers.lycos.com 22 16 73 6603 http://download.com.com 7 6 86 1101 http://www.handheldnews.com 23 15 65 647 http://www.palmgear.com 27 15 56 20102 http://www.hpc.net 21 14 67 1024 http://www.pdamd.com 10 6 60 185 http://www.freewarepalm.com 24 16 67 3510 http://www.memoware.com 18 11 61 3359 http://www.gy.com 10 8 80 0 http://cearchives.cearchives.com 29 26 67 574 http://www.ipaqsoft.net 28 18 64 4039 http://www.mobilecoders.com 9 6 67 1289 http://pie.concord.org 28 16 57 53 http://www.microsoft.com 7 5 71 8063 http://www.freepoc.de 11 8 73 25 http://midlet.org 5 5 100 306 http://www.microjava.com 8 5 63 271 http://downloads-zdnet.com.com 8 6 75 2389 http://www.vnunet.com 10 9 90 151 http://www.pcworld.com 0 http://www.mobilecomputing.com 0 http://www.mobileinfo.com 0 http://half.ebay.com 13 7 54 0 http://www.digitalriver.com 0 http://standalone.com 0 http://www.handango.com 13 11 85 21008 http://www.rocketdownload.com 7 6 86 110 http://www.handheldcomputerdepot.com 4 4 100 181

SUM 410 280 73 93341



3.1.3.3 The sites’ contribution to application counting This section we discuss the skew distribution of applications and frequency. From the data in the Appendix A, we see that some sites offer more applications than others. For example http://www.handango.com contributes 79% of all applications recorded in the category Development although 12 sites use that category name. We can see from Table 3-2 that the site that offers most applications is http://www.palmgear.com . This site contributes with 20102 applications to this survey. The percentage of categories counted at this site is 56%.

3.1.3.4 Duplicate applications In Table 3-1 and Table 3-2, we see that the amount of applications we have counted in total are 93 341. Due to the limitations set when doing the data collection, we can assume that some applications are counted more than once in the data collection. To find out in what degree this data overload was valid, we did a check. We randomly selected 8 applications and searched for them in the 26 sites. Appendix C contains the recorded results from the search. The eight applications occurred the following times: 3, 1, 2, 8, 1, 1, 4 and 2. On average one application occurred at 2.75 sites. Therefore we can estimate the total number of different applications to be 34 000 (≈ 93341/2.75). The number 2.75 will from now be called the application constant.

3.1.4 Discussion The results from last section can be further explored. In this section you find a discussion of the results. At the end of this section we look at the results from the angle of mobile work.

3.1.4.1 Data overload As discussed earlier, the survey provides a very rough data set. It is important to have this in mind when interpreting the data collected. In terms of categorisation, the data collection must also be looked upon as very rough. If two sites for example were asked to categorise the same application they might put it under two different categories. This means that site providers usually have different interpretations of the category name.

3.1.4.2 Contents of categories When collecting the data we inspected the sub categorisation some sites offered. We also looked at the description of some of the applications offered. This gave us an idea of what types of applications sites put into their categories. The results varied largely. The following is a description of the difference of content of a category and a comparison to similar categories. Utility is the second most used category name. But the content of it differ from site to site. Some sites put games and maps into this category, whereas other put enhancement applications there. Our impression of this category is that it is an umbrella category where



applications that do not fit into any other category are put. The type of applications that fall into this category depended on the further categorisation of the site. Business and financial is the third most frequent category with its 23 occurrences and 8471 applications counted (and not calibrated with the application constant). A category often found as a sub category in sites using this category is Productivity, in which 8 occurrences of Productivity as the main category and 9055 applications. Vise versa, many of the sites with Productivity as a main category have the sub category Business and financial. It seems like these two categories are similar categories that should have been added together into one category in advance of the data collection. In some sites that offer the Enhancement category, there are some applications belonging to what we interpreted as Security. An application that offers security also enhance the performance of a PDA, thereby application that belongs to Security also belongs to Enhancement. In some sites dictionaries are put into the Travel category. The reason for this might be the need for translation when travelling. Thereby many applications were, in our counting of categories, wrongly counted as belonging to Travel instead of Translation and books. Some sites also put dictionaries into Education as well as books. Education and Science also share a union of application types. Looking at sites that contains the category Education, many of the applications could have be categorised into Science if interpreted. Sites offering the Database category have a different interpretation of that term. A database is defined as a large collection of data in a computer, organized so that it can be expanded, updated, and retrieved rapidly for various uses or any large or extensive collection of information [6]. A database is a collection of certain data. These data can be about any topic specific for that database. Applications in a Database category can therefore usually be put into some category that is specific for the data it contains, for instance Science or Business and Financial. Applications found in Notes and handwriting, belonged to one of two groups. One group was applications that enhance the sign interpretation when writing by hand on a PDA. This group can be looked upon as a type of Enhancement software. The second group was applications that were notebooks. Applications from this last type can fall into the category Productivity, Education or Translation and books.

3.1.4.3 Combining synonymous categories In the previous section we described some similarities we found between categories and the contents of them. With basis in the discussion above, we rearrange the data by adding together categories that contain similar applications and removing non-consistent categories.



Table 3-3: Rearranging data into larger categories.

Number of sites with the category

Number of applications belonging to category

Games 26 20180 Business, financial and productivity

24 17487

Travel, translation, books, science and education

23 25768

Internet, network and communication

18 4109

Multimedia 17 3261 Medicine and health 14 4175 Development 12 2058 Enhancement and security 11 4437 Total: 145 81475 Table 3-3 shows the results after such a reorganising. The numbers of applications are not calibrated with the application constant. The table contains 8 categories whereas Table 3-1 has 16. Table 3-3 is a rearrangement of the data in Table 3-1 by joining together some categories by adding the name and the numbers, and by removing ambiguous categories. The frequency is recalculated, because it says how many sites that offered that category, and it is not correct to add the numbers in Table 3-1. The following categories are removed:

Utility Notes and handwriting Database

The following categories are combined together:

Travel, Translation and books, Science and Education Business and financial and Productivity Enhancement and Security

Table 3-3 probably represents a more correct interpretation of the results than Table 3-1 with respect to equal types of applications that a category contains. In other words, in Table 3-3 it is more likely that the similar applications are collected in the same category than in Table 3-1. The categories Medicine and health and Development are categories that are kept the way they were in Table 3-1. The reason for that is that the contents of those were quite similar in the sites using them.

3.1.4.4 Using only the three sites that contains most applications In this section we look at how the largest providers categorize applications. How would the frequency and applications look like if we use only the three sites that contribute most applications to this study? The three sites are the following:



Number 1, www.software.palm.com Number 9, www.palmgear.com Number 31, www.handgo.com

Table 3-4 gives an overview of the results. It is organised the same way as in Table 3-1. Beware that the table is sorted on frequency. Table 3-4: Recordings from the three largest sites.

Frequency Applications 1 (1) Games 3 9975 2 (11) Education 3 7752 3 (3) Business and financial 3 4915 7,8 4 (6) Travel 3 4069 5 (7) Translation and books 3 3484 6 (14) Productivity 3 2879 7 (13) Database 3 2481 8 (8) Medicine and health 3 2216 12 9 (12) Enhancement 2 3422 10 (2) Utility 1 3168 6,2 11 (4) Internet, network and communication 1 1509 12 (6) Multimedia 1 1969 13 (9) Science 1 1069 14 (10) Development 1 1630 15,5 15 (15) Security 0 0 16 (16) Notes and handwriting 0 0 Total: 31 50538 The numbers in the second column show the rating the category has due to the sorting in frequency and applications. The numbers given in the parenthesis is the rating that the same category had in Table 3-1. We can see that the ratings are quite different in the two tables. The first column in Table 3-4 contains the average rating from Table 3-1 for the categories in Table 3-4 with equal frequency. We can see that the average for the categories Games to Medicine and health is greater (7.8) than the average for the categories Utility to Development (6.2). Therefore we can conclude that the large providers of applications chose to categorise different than the average providers.

3.1.4.5 Total number of applications offered at the sites When studying all the data we wanted to find out how many applications these sites offer in total. We can make a rough estimate by comparing the percentage of categories covered in our counting (see



Table 3-2) and assume that applications are distributed similarly over the all categories. This rough estimate tells us that the 26 sites in total contain 140 388 applications. If we use the application constant from section 3.1.3.4 there are 51 050 applications that the 26 sites offer in total.

3.1.4.6 Applications used in mobile work Using the categories listed in Table 3-1 we want to find out which applications can be used in mobile work. The five categories we can assume contain such applications are the following:

Business and financial Medicine and health Productivity Education Multimedia

These categories contain is 37% of all applications counted. It must be emphasized that there is no quality check of the applications. Some of those might be useless applications for working purposes.

3.1.5 Categorisation of applications for mobile work We have now an overview of the number of applications that exists, and that support mobile work. We want to discover the use of mobile software in mobile work. In order to understand what types of applications the mobile workers use, we need our own categorisation that focuses on features related to mobile work. There are three main dimensions where we want to categorise the applications used in mobile work. The first dimension reflects the connectivity of the application. The second dimension reflects the data flow. The third dimension is the degree of nomadicy in the application.

3.1.5.1 Connectivity axis An application can operate online, partly online or offline. The Gartner categorisation described in section 2.2.1 distinguishes between three types of categories. The first type is either online or offline. The second is a specialised type of the first but utilizes only wireless communication. The last is a microbrowser that is always online connected via wireless transmission. We will use the following four categories to categorise an application in the connection axis:

1) Always disconnected. These are applications that do not need to be synchronised with a system base. Most games are examples of such applications.

2) Occasionally connected over cabled communication. The cabled connection link can be different types of wires such as optical fibre, coax cable or another cable. Examples of such applications are applications on a PDA that must be synchronised through the cradle e.g. Documents To Go [46].

3) Occasionally connected over wireless communication. The wireless communication links can be infrared, Bluetooth, global system for mobile communication (GSM), wireless LAN or cellular network. An example of such an application is the ECG



application described in section 2.2.5. Here waiters send the order over wireless LAN to the kitchen.

4) Always online connected to a server over wireless transmission. The wireless connection can be general packet radio services (GPRS), wireless LAN, code division multiple access (CDMA), generally using Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) through a wireless application gateway (WAG). Examples of such applications are email on a device that uses GPRS.

Some applications can belong to both the categories two and three. The application Handyman, which will be described further in section 3.2, operates by transferring data both through a mobile phone and a PDA cradle. Some applications will for some users belong to category one, but when utilizing other functionalities of the application, the application will belong to category 3. Thus we can conclude that an application does not necessary belong to one category. It is how a user utilizes the application that determines in which category an application belongs to.

3.1.5.2 Dataflow axis The second dimension reflects the data flow. Is the application just a place to look up information? Or is it for writing down information, like in a notebook, or is it a combination of the two, where the user needs some interaction with the application to make use of it. We have three types of applications with respect to the data flow:

Data flow from a PDA to a user Data flow from a user to a PDA Interaction where data flows both ways in an interaction between a user and the PDA.

In section 2.2.5 we described a case where paperboys download the subscribers of the newspaper. This is an example where the dataflow is from the PDA to the user. The PDA is a tool where the newsman can look up information. In section 2.2.5 we described a system where the PDA serves as a questionnaire. The restaurant guests fill in answers to questions on a PDA. This is an example where data goes from the user to the system. Section 2.2.5 also describes a system where a waiter types in an order on the PDA that is sent directly to the kitchen, and the waiter can look up information about last day’s orders. This is an example of a two-way dataflow application. The user and the PDA have a complex interaction where information is exchanged both ways.

3.1.5.3 Nomadicy axis The third dimension is the degree of support for nomadicy in the application. In section 2.2.8 we describe three categories of nomadic work. The first category is work done away from the office less than 12 hours per week. The second category is work done away from the office 13-28 hours per week. The last category is work done away from the office more than 29 hours per week [12]. We want to find out if the applications for mobile devices reflect the degree of nomadicy of the users. We will expect that an application used by a person in the first category will be a key application that the user also uses on the desktop. Documents To Go is an example of such an application. Applications in the second category can be applications that support an estate broker, such as the Promotional PDA Home Buying Guide [47]. Applications from the last category might be applications that support professions such as entrepreneurs and electricians. The application Handyman, which will be described further in section 3.2, is an example of such an application.



3.2 Case study This chapter will give an overview of how PDAs are used in relation to mobile work and then report a case study on the application Handyman. Chapter 3.2.1 gives a description of how mobile work started in the USA and in Norway. It will also give some statistic for nomadic work. The last section will go in depth in the application Handyman which is developed by a Norwegian company. This section also presents a case study we have done about use of Handyman.

3.2.1 Introduction The oil crisis during early 70s started a trend to work remotely. This happened on the east coast of the USA. Researchers estimated that an employee could save 5.4 million oil barrels each day for every person in the workforce that worked from home or through the telecommunication system [45]. In Norway remote workers did not become common until the 80s. This was due to the regional policy where the goal was to maintain the scattered settlement in Norway [45]. The trend for nomads is quite different. A survey that Telenor FoU conducted in 2002, showed that there are 5% more employees working other places than at their fixed office or home than in 1998 [12]. The number of remote workers in EU has increased from 1,5% in 1999 to 4% in 2002. At the same time Institute of Employment Studies [12] has predicted that 27 million people in Europe will have a job that let them work through the telecommunication system before 2010. People that work less than twenty-eight hours a week is the most increasing group of nomadic workers. The most common place for a nomad is in the building, construction and transport industry and these employees are working more than thirty hours a week [12].

3.2.2 Case study of Handyman Handyman is an application for PDA made by the Norwegian company ePocket. We have done a case study on use of this application. We have spoken to the developers and the users of the application. Handyman is aimed for companies with co-workers that install, control, maintain or similar. In section 3.2.2.1, an introduction of the company will be given. Section 3.2.2.2 gives an overview of the functionality of the application Handyman. Section 3.2.2.3 presents a case study of Handyman. A list of 25 businesses that uses Handyman is listed in Appendix G. Information about Handyman is collected from an employee at ePocket [16] and advertisement brochures made by ePocket [23].

3.2.2.1 The company ePocket The Norwegian company ePocket Solutions ASA, was established in 1996. The company has produced applications for PDAs since 1996. Today, 800 Norwegian craftsmen use the program Handyman made by ePocket, approximately 200 companies use the product and 1600 licenses are sold so far. When the company started up, they had to decide whether to



make programs for transport-, garbage-, elevator- or the electro business. ePocket found the choice easy since a research had shown that electricians had the shortest decision process also in decisions where a lot of money is involved.

3.2.2.2 Overview of ePocket product Handyman ePocket's vision is: "You shall within ten seconds take your PDA out of your pocket, turn it on, start the program and begin with your registration" [17]. Handyman is supposed to replace memos, hour- and material lists. The program avoids double registration and ease the process to register hour and material consume since the workers do it at the time they are finished with an order. This reduces the waste as well. All information that are registered on the PDA are automatically sent to the order- and economy system. This will improve the overview over tasks and improve the management of electricians. Handyman's main menu shows five icons: register on a task, stock and orders, hour overview, synchronization and settings (Figure 3-1). Each icon represents a feature and will be described further below, except from the icon “Settings”.

Figure 3-1: Handyman’s main menu.

Register on task

This function offers access to all tasks a craftsman will carry out during the next period of time. He can access a list with all the tasks he has to perform (Figure 3-2), and he can look up information such as the name of the customer, place of work, special messages from the office and which priority the task has.



Figure 3-2: Screenshot of tasks.

Handyman makes it difficult to forget anything before a task is ended. This is because the program has a fixed workflow that the craftsman has to follow before he can sign on the screen for finished task. A customer can also sign on the screen to approve that task was committed. Figure 3-3 [17] shows the fixed control function that the craftsman has to check before he can end the task. Figure 3-4 [23] shows how an electrician can sign the touch sensitive screen. The picture is from a handheld PC running Handyman.

Figure 3-3: Handyman reminders of important tasks.



Figure 3-4: Screenshot from HP Jornada 710/720, shows signing on the screen.

Handyman also has a smart arrangement called wordbook. Instead of writing each letter on the PDA, the program gives shortcuts to predefined words. To put together a sentence like “repair socket bath”, a user will first pick a word from the “task list”, then a word from the “what list” and in the end a word from the “where list” (Figure 3-5 [17]).

Figure 3-5: Screenshot from a HP Jornada 710/720, shows the wordbook.

Stock and orders

It is expensive to have either a too small or a too big inventory. Handyman gives up-to-date information of what can be found in the service car, the main stock and at the merchant (Figure 3-6). If the product is not in the service car, an order can be sent directly to either the main stock or the merchant. The program will also order products automatically to the service car if the inventory is below a certain minimum range. To avoid punching every product into the program, it is possible to enable the PDA with a bar-code scanner.



Figure 3-6: Screenshot that shows how to order products.

Hour overview

The Handyman lets the user register the tasks he has committed. The user can record the task name, which price they can require, how many hours the task took, what products used and how many kilometers driven (Figure 3-7). The Handyman gives all the information that is needed for making an invoice and bill. This shortens the time it takes for the client to receive the invoice.

Figure 3-7: Screen shot form HP Jornada 710/720 that shows the hour overview.

Synchronization

The PDA can be synchronized with both the customer support and economy system. When the PDA is synchronized, performed tasks are uploaded to the system and new duties for the craftsman are sent in return. At the same time, new releases of the programs will be downloaded and if there are need for that. For instance can the PDA be given from an electrician to a plumber and a wordbook will then be downloaded.

ePocket has to customize Handyman for every customer. ePocket has estimated that a new user will spend approximately five hours to learn the program properly and a typical customer



will have five to nine months of payback time. Future versions of Handyman will include a map that shows the way to the customer and camera to take pictures of the work that has been done.

Handyman can only run on the operating system Microsoft CE, but the system has also an administrator part running on an ordinary PC. Figure 3-8 shows the architecture of Handyman. The administrator, database and synchronization server are typically installed on the same machine for small companies. The PDA and the economy system use XML for communication. Product orders from the merchant are done by FTP or HTTP. There are different ways to synchronize the PDA. One way is through the Internet with GPRS or via LAN/wireless LAN at the office. Another way is via RAS (Remote Access Service) with GSM.

Figure 3-8: System architecture of Handyman.

3.2.2.3 Contact with Handyman users This chapter will explore the use of Handyman. Tim Bye from ePocket gave us five names of companies that use Handyman. All five were electrician companies. Appendix C gives a complete list of all the customers and company names, name of the person interviewed, where they are situated and the telephone number to the company. Both Elektrisk Produktion AS and ELAJO said they was joining a pilot study of Handyman. Haltuff og Ihlebæk AS had a evaluation project.



Each user was given four questions. The four questions below are later referred to with numbers.

1. How is a typical day for you, in the light of the use of Handyman? 2. How can your PDA be synchronized and how many other do also have a PDA in your

company? 3. What problems and advantages do the PDA give you? 4. What do you do with ad-hoc tasks?

The last question will further be elaborated below in section 3.2.2.3.4. Each of the answers given from the five electrician companies are explored in the next four sections.

3.2.2.3.1 Answers to question 1 “How is a typical day for you, in the light of the use of Handyman?” All the electricians told very similar stories of how a normal day at work would typically be. They all found which customer to visit next by looking up on the PDA. After they had completed a task, they used their PDA to register information about the task such as hours used, what had been done and what products they had installed. Electricians at Lillehammer Elektro AS [50] have been using Handyman on their HP Jornada for two years. Customer support registers all the tasks and gives the jobs to the electrician with the right qualification. The customer support provides the PDA with all the information the electrician need to do his work. The electricians are specialized in different fields, like industry or fire brigade. Elektrisk Produktion AS [51] has used Handyman on Compaq PDAs for two and a half year. They use it to register hour worked, kilometers driven and road toll. All expenses are calculated directly from information gathered from the program. The representative from Haltuff & Ihlebæk AS [52] did not know what a PDA was but he used the word Handyman when he referred to the PDA. He told us that the name of his Handyman was HP Journada. Employees at Haltuff & Ihlebæk AS use the email program nearly as much as Handyman. At ELAJO [53] only those that drive a service car equipped with an equipment stock use Handyman. They run Handyman on Compaq PDAs. All the electricians have different habits at the company Tjøme El. Installasjon AS [54]. The company encourages the electricians to register as much as possible when they are still at the customer since the electricians then have everything clear in mind. Usually the electricians write down a draft on paper that contains information of the different product that the electricians most often use, and then they typed the information into the HP journada PDA. Some electricians use other programs, such as notebook.



3.2.2.3.2 Answers to question 2 “How can your PDA be synchronized and how many other do also have a PDA in your company?” The electrician at Lillehammer Elektro AS [50] can synchronize through their mobile phone, on a cradle at their office or through a modem. Most of the electricians synchronize their PDA approximately three times a week, but they can do more often. 55 electricians at Lillehammer Elektro is equipped with a PDA. Earlier, the company had two main offices. After the introduction of Handyman, one of the offices has been shut down. This resulted in better management of work and business processes. The employees at Elektrisk Produktion [51] synchronize their PDA by their mobile phones or through a cradle at their main office. At the moment the electricians usually synchronize once every two weeks, but lately Bluetooth has been introduced to some users, making the synchronization online and invisible to the user. One of the reason to the introduction of Bluetooth, was probably the uncertainly about how often they should synchronize. If an electrician does not do it often enough he can fail to obtain important information. The company has approximately sixty electricians, and of these about twelve use PDA. Elektrisk Production sees the need for a PDA for every electrician and will soon provide 30 more electricians with PDAs. In the company Haltuff & Ihlebæk AS [52] an electrician can synchronize the PDA though a cradle at the main office, with a mobile phone or a modem. They try to synchronize as often as possible so they do not miss any information. Today, a typical electrician at Haltuff & Ihlebæk AS synchronizes once a day. Every electrician, except for the apprentices has a PDA (six persons). Electricians at ELAJO [53] do not have a mobile phone or any other equipment that makes it possible to synchronize away from the office. They need to visit their main office every time they want to download or upload any information. The electricians synchronize not more than once a week. Only six persons at the company have a PDA, but they will expand the use soon. One employee at ELAJO [27] knew it was possible to synchronize without doing it at the office, but he hadn't bothered to learn or buy the right equipment. He thought it was more important to get the PDA to function properly before they bought more equipment. The electricians at Tjøme El. Installasjon AS [54] also have to visit the main office every time they synchronize. As a rule, every electrician synchronizes at least every Monday morning. Normally the employee meets up at the office every morning and they synchronize their PDA at the same time. At this company, only four electricians had a PDA.

3.2.2.3.3 Answers to question 3 “What problems and advantages do the PDA give you?” Every person interviewed mentioned that the PDA made it possible to record the information only once. Earlier, the information was recorded by writing it down on paper and to later transfer it manually to the systems at the office.



Lillehammer Elektro AS [50] complained that the program sometimes could hang, but this was not a big problem. In addition, the employee thought the device was very fragile and did not tolerate rain, wind and shocks. That’s why electricians often sit in their car when they register information on the PDA. It is often very cold in Hedmark. At minus twenty degrees, Celsius electricians had very often problems with the PDA. When the device is cold, it is very slow. Another challenge mentioned by Lillehammer Elektro is to remember to charge the battery on the PDA. Elektrisk Produktion [51] thought the program was very stable and operated very well. One feature they hoped would come was to invoice the customer directly while the electrician was still at the customer. “But that is just a dream”; said the representative from Elektrisk Produksjon about that feature. Electricians at Haltuff & Ihlebæk [52] register everything on the PDA when sitting in the car. This is the same procedure as earlier when they registered everything on paper. The electricians do not bring the PDA outside the car because they are afraid it will be destroyed. ELAJO [53] appreciated the control the program gives in relation to what the service car contains of stock. Tjøme El. Installasjon AS [54] had also a problem with the PDA in cold surroundings. On the other hand, the sunshine made it difficult to see the screen outside.

3.2.2.3.4 Answers to question 4 “What do you do with ad-hoc tasks?” If a day is planned to every detail in advance of that day, it is not necessarily to synchronize the PDA within that day. The electrician only needs to synchronize at the end of the planed period. But if a neighbor of one of the customers that the electrician visits want help, the electricians have to register a new task. This new task is called an ad-hoc task. Lillehammer Elektro AS [50] and Elektrisk Produktion AS [51] do this kind of synchronization process the same way. They manage ad-hoc tasks by calling to the customer support, which will make an order number. When the electrician synchronizes the PDA he receives the order. Now he can register information from the work on his PDA. Neither electricians from ELAJO [53] nor Tjøme El. Installasjon AS [54] or Haltuff & Ihlebæk [52] have the possibility to receive information on their PDA when they are away from the office. If an ad-hoc task occurs the electrician will perform it and record the information about the task on paper. The customer support is then informed about the task and prepares the system for it. Next time the electrician synchronises he receives that task on the PDA and he must fill in the information that he wrote down earlier. ELAJO find this method cumbersome, but it is the best way to solve it at the moment.



3.2.2.4 Summary of interviews Many advantages and problems with the use of Handyman was discovered though the interviews with users. A summary of each question is given below. How is a typical day for you, in the light of the use of Handyman?

The program provides the electricians with all information they need to perform work the next few days.

One company did not know what a PDA was, but was familiar with the term Handyman. How can your PDA be synchronized and how many other do also have a PDA in your company?

The number of employees at a company using PDA was between four and 55. Two of the companies only synchronized at the main office and hey both used the cradle

when synchronizing. The frequency of the synchronising was different from business to business. Some did

only do it once every second week, others had the PDA connected to the mobile phone so they were be online all the time.

What problems and/or advantage does the PDA give you? Problems:

The electricians’ expresses an uncertainty about how much a PDA can bear of shock, water and coldness.

Coldness makes the PDA very slow. Sunshine makes it difficult to see the screen.

Advantages: Makes it possible to record information only once. Control of the contents of the service car.

What do you do with ad-hoc tasks?

In two companies they must call the main office and request a new order. The electricians will then synchronize and receive the new order on the PDA.

In the three last companies they must visit the main office to get download the order on the PDA. Meanwhile, the electricians will write all important information on paper.



3.3 Questionnaire The supervisors of this project wanted us to start the work on a survey on mobile devices in mobile work. Their plan is to carry out the survey in the spring 2003. We solved this task by making a pilot questionnaire. This chapter contains a brief plan of how to carry out the survey. The pilot questionnaire is in Appendix D.

3.3.1 Motivation Our customers in this project needed a questionnaire in order to carry out a survey on use of handheld devices in mobile work. The customers are also our supervisors. They want us to start working on the survey in this project and hope that we or other students will carry out the survey next semester as part of the work within the diploma.

3.3.2 Carrying out the survey A lot of preparations must be completed in advance of the survey [47]. Here we will discuss the parameters that must be set before making the questionnaire. Since this is just the pre-phase of the survey, the questionnaire will probably be changed when validating and verifying the questions in the study. Objectives We want to discover relationships between users and the use of mobile devices and be able to suggest issues and improvement possibilities related to the issues of devices in mobile work, the mobile workflow, the supporting systems, collaboration opportunities, usability issues and the possible need for multimedia. The questionnaire has six main categories:

How much mobile devices are used in mobile work Which devices people connect to the mobile device Which tasks that are done on a mobile device What programs are used on mobile devices Problems when using a PDA How users synchronize the PDA

Who? The respondents of the survey will be persons working mobile. To find a representative sample of respondents are a difficult task. We plan to find them by looking up in the business register database called Kompass. Here we can search for businesses by products, services and business named. Most Norweegian businesses are registered here [28]. The respondents will be from randomly picked out businesses work mobile. The number of respondents from each company will depend on the total number of employees. How? We will carry out the survey by calling the respondents and asking them the questions. The reason for this is that we have experienced that the users of mobile applications can be confused by technical terms and do not know what they mean. If we speak to them, we can explain the terms immediately. Also the respondents feel more obliged to respond when they are interviewed over phone than when they receive a questionnaire in the mail. Another advantage of phone calls is that we get the response quickly. Yet another advantage is that we can discover interesting information that is not asked for in the questionnaire when speaking to the respondent.



4 Conclusion and further work This chapter summarises the report and work contributed. It also suggests further work that can be done within a basis from this report. Suggesting further work increases the value of this report so that it can be used in the extension of this project.

4.1 Summary The first chapter of this report defines the context of the work by stating a problem definition, describing how the project will be carried out, defining a set of important terms and describing what the following chapters contain. Chapter two contains a study of work in the field mobile devices in mobile work. We described how we collected the information and we summarised interesting work on mobile devices and mobile work by looking at examples of use of mobile devices in mobile work. The chapter ends with a description of the mobile devices we consider in this report. The third chapter contains our own contribution. Overall it is a study of applications to support mobile work. Section 3.1 addresses issue 1.a which is stated in section 1.2. The section presents a survey of applications for mobile devices. We looked at Internet providers of applications for mobile devices and defined categories for applications. Then we counted applications that belong to those categories and got an overview of what type of applications that Internet providers offer. We estimated the total number of applications offered by the 26 sited to be 51050. Section 3.2 addresses issue 1.b. It presents the case study of Handyman. We described the features of the application and the results from interviews of five employees that come from different electrician companies. From the interviews we identified advantages and problems with use of Handyman. In section 3.3 we addresses issue 2. We described a future study about mobile devices in mobile work. We developed a questionnaire based on some assumptions about how to carry out the survey.

4.2 Challenges of the future With basis in the work we have contributed, many tasks can be performed to extend the work. In this section we propose some of them. Carrying out a larger survey This report can be looked at as a preparation of a larger study. In section 3.3 we start preparing for the survey by developing a questionnaire. To complete the survey many tasks remain. Validating the questionnaire, finding a representative sample, administering the questionnaire, analysing results and reporting results are some of those.

Validating the questionnaire can be completed in two ways. The first is to validate it with respect to experts. The second is to validate with respect to respondents. The validation will result in a final questionnaire.



Finding a representative sample of the population can be completed by consulting experts on this field. The goal is to find a representative sample that gives a statistically correct data sample. The survey is designed to have respondents that work mobile. Administering the questionnaire can be completed by phoning the respondents as described in 3.3.2. Analysing the results is a task in which we hope will discover many of the properties within the use of mobile devices in mobile work. We can for instance look at the correlation between the tools used and the applications used and usability. Another property we can study is for instance to categorise applications categorised as suggested in suggested in 3.1.5 and check if applications that belong to the same category with respect to one or more of the category axis satisfy the users more than other types of categories. Yet another property we can check for is if mobile phone is used only for personal use and not to support the work. A different way to perform the study use of mobile devices in mobile work is to perform a controlled intervention study. Supplying one of two similar businesses with a PDAs and then studying the two businesses can give interesting results. The PDAs will contain an application that supports the mobile work the businesses perform. After some training in use of the PDA, we can find the businesses` satisfaction with respect to the workers, profitability and their customers and then can compare the satisfaction in the two businesses. Categorisation of applications In section 3.1.5 we suggested three axes that applications for mobile devices can be categorised within. Validating them and extending the definitions of the categories can be performed in order to improve the categorisations. Then the categorisation can be used in evaluations of mobile applications. Further research can find out whether some categories of applications are more successful than other. When analysing applications it can be useful to plot the categories in a two or three dimensional diagram where the axis represents the categories suggested in 3.1.5. An example of such a diagram is Figure 4-1.

Figure 4-1: Diagram with connectivity versus nomadicy.

Nomadicy

Connectivity

29 12 Hour

1

2

3

4

Category

x

x x

x



5 References [1] Reidar Conradi (ed.). MOWAHS: Mobile Work Across Heterogeneous Systems, 2000. Research Project supported by the Research Council of Norway 2001-2004, IDI/NTNU. [2] Carl Shapiro and Hal R. Varian. Information Rules; A Strategic Guide to Network Economy. Harvard Business school press, 1998. [3] Mobile Work Across Heterogenous Systems – MOWAHS. http://www.mowahs.com. Accessed: October 19, 2002. [4] Norsk telemuseum. Fakta om nyere telehistorie i Norge. http://www.norsktele.museum.no/index_ieoff.html. Accessed: November 4, 2002. [5] PCPro. Camilla LaHart (November 29, 2001). En milliard mobile brukere. Available from: http://www.pcpro.no/pda_mobil/mobiltelefoner/Mobilprognose.htm. Accessed: November 4, 2002. [6] Encyclopedia. http://www.encyclopedia.com. Accessed: September 30, 2002. [7] eLibrary, http://ask.elibrary.com. Accessed: September 30, 2002. [8] C. Wohlin et al. Experimentation in Software Engineering: An Introduction, Kluwer Academic Publishers, November 1999. [9] IDG.net. Joris Evers and Terho Uimonen (2000). Mobile phone vendors jump on Java. http://www.idg.net/idgns/2000/11/14/COMDEXMobilePhoneVendorsJump.shtml. Accessed: October 4, 2002. [10] Nokia. FAQ. http://www.nokia.com/java/faq.html. Accessed: October 4, 2002. [11] Encyclopedia. http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/p1/perdigas.asp#MOREPICS. Accessed: October 31, 2002. [12] Sølvi W. Normannsen. En trådløs tilværelse. Dagens næringsliv. Monday 7 October 2002, p.18 [13] Avisbud med trådløs hjelp. Gemini, nr 4, September 2002, p.28. [14] Peter Strozniak. Goodbye paper, goodbye costs. Frontline solutions; Duluth; volume 3, August 2002, p.26-30. [15] Alan Jay Liddle. Operators go electronic in quest to better understand, serve guests, Nation's Restaurant News; New York; volume 35, April 16, 2001, p.54-56. [16] Tim Bye ([email protected]), the development manager in the Norwegian company ePocket Solutions ASA. Lørenveien 38c, 0585, Phone number: 23 39 33 00. [17] ePocket Solutions ASA. http://www.epocket.no. Accessed: October 7, 2002.



[18] Robert Lowes. Toward a handheld EMR. Medical Economics; Oradell; volume 79, January 11, 2002, p.26-28. [19] AvantGo. Karen Logsdon and Angelique Faul. Press Release: Survey showes PDAs are just what the doctor ordered. Hayward; California; April 11, 2002. Available from: http://avantgo.com/news/press/press_archive/2002/release04_11_02.html. Accessed: October 9, 2002. [20] Executive Mobile Wireless Survey. September 2000: Mobile Communications at Work. Wirthlin Worldwide 2000. [21] Aaron Marcus and Eugene Chen. Designing the PDA of the Future, ACM Press; New York; USA; January 2002. [22] Userforum, Astrid Søndergaard (2001). Pervasive computing. http://www.userforum.dk/arkiv/artikelliste/pc.asp. Accessed: November 19, 2002. [23] Advertising brochures from ePocket. Accessed: October 11, 2002. [24] Joanne Correia. Mobile and Wireless Software: Overhyped?. Gartner, Inc 2002; Resource Id: 352397. Available from: http://www4.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?id=352397&ref=g_search. Accessed: October 15, 2002. [25] Anupam Joshi et al. A survey of Mobile Computing Technologies and Applications, Purde University; West Lafayette; October 29, 1995. [26] PCPro, Camilla LaHart. PDA brukere ønsker e-mail. http://www.pcpro.no/pda_mobil/pda/PDAMail.htm; November 21 2001. Accessed: October 22, 2002. [27] Sean Ginevan. Network in the palm of your hand. Network Computing; Manhasset; volume 13; August 5, 2002; p.67. [28] Kompass. A search engine for Business-to-Business. http://www.kompass.com/ip/ntnu. Accessed: October, 14 2002. [29] Norma Schroder. Reality check: Mobile and Wireless Software in 2002, Gartner, Inc 2002; January 31, 2002. [30] Cytex Corporation, http://www.cytex.com/go/MBParker/Thinking/Communication/PIM. Accessed: November 19, 2002. [31] It avisen (August 7, 2002). Labert PDA-salg. http://www.itavisen.no/art/1299225.html. Accessed: October 8, 2002. [32] Newsfactor Network (February 14, 2002), Brian McDonough. Report: Global PDA Sales Grew 18 Percent in 2001. http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/16354.html Accessed: October 8, 2002.



[33] BIBSYS, A library database with information about books, periodical, research documents, articles. http://www.bibsys.no. Accessed: September 6, 2002. [34] Psion. http://www.psion.com. Accessed: September 10, 2002. [35] Palm Boulevard. http://www.palmblvd.com. Accessed: September 28, 2002. [36] Handheldnews.com. http://www.handheldnews.com. Accessed: October 1, 2002. [37] FreewarePalm. http://www.freewarepalm.com. Accessed: October 1, 2002. [38] Jacado. Games & fun for mobile telephones and Personal digital assistants. http://www.jacado.com. Accessed: November 5, 2002. [39] Blue Sphere Games. http://www.bluespheregames.com. Accessed: November 5, 2002. [40] Mobizex, J2ME Wireless Applications for Better life. http://www.mobizex.com. Accessed: November 5, 2002. [41] Palm. http://software.palm.com. Accessed: November 5, 2002. [42] Telemark Fylkeskommune (November 14, 2002), Jan Fredrik Vinje. Digital hverdag for Brekkeby-lærere. http://telemark-fk.no. Accessed: November 14, 2002. [43] Telenor, Forskningsresultater 2001. Available from: http://www.telenor.no/fou/publisering/2001.pdf. Accsessed: October 18, 2002. [44] Bitconomy ( July 28, 2000), Alf Mads Lausten. Det mobile internet og den mobile livsstil. http://www.bitconomy.dk/magasin.asp?article=371&showmenu=6. Accsessed: November 7, 2002. [45] Oljekrisen ga støtet. Dagens næringsliv. Monday 7 October 2002, p.19 [46] Veksttrend. Dagens næringsliv. Monday 7 October 2002, p.19 [47] Shari Lawrence Pfleeger and Barbara Kitchenham. Principles of Survey Research. Software Engineering Notes, vol 26, no 6. November 2001. [48] searchSecurity.com(November 8, 2001), Bryan Morgan. Thinking about wireless security. http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid14_gci780536,00.html. Accessed: November 17, 2002. [49] Siemens, https://communication-market.siemens.de. Accessed: November 17, 2002. [50] Geir Bjerke at Lillehammer Elektro AS (Ringsaker Elektro AS) in Lillehammer. [51] Tore Reppesgård at Elektrisk Produktion AS in Drammen. [52] Runar Haltuff at Haltuff & Ihlebæk AS in Oslo.



[53] Erik Stray at ELAJO in Oslo. [54] Svenn Åge Frogner at Tjøme El. Installasjon AS in Tjøme. [55] GRL Communications Inc. http://www.monitor.ca/monitor/issues/vol10iss4/netbytes.html. Accessed: November 14, 2002. [56] Whatis.com. http://whatis.techtarget.com. Accessed: November 8, 2002. [57] Webopedia. http://webopedia.com. Accessed: November 6, 2002. [58] About. http://palmtops.about.com/bldefcradle.htm. Accessed: October 30, 2002. [59] searchSecurity.com. http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid14_gci212887,00.html. Accessed: November 9, 2002.



Appendix A Results from the data collection

Summing up All

categoriesCounted

categoriesPercent counted Date

Number of applications for each site

http://software.palm.com 14 8 57,14 % 01.10.02 12408http://www.pdastreet.com 11 9 81,82 % 01.10.02 18http://www.penreader.com 6 5 83,33 % 01.10.02 201http://www.collectivemed.com 7 6 85,71 % 01.10.02 220http://www.pdacentral.com 20 13 65,00 % 02.10.02 5504http://computers.lycos.com 22 16 72,73 % 02.10.02 6603http://download.com.com 7 6 85,71 % 01.10.02 1101http://www.handheldnews.com 23 15 65,22 % 01.10.02 647http://www.palmgear.com 27 15 55,56 % 01.10.02 20102http://www.hpc.net 21 14 66,67 % 01.10.02 1024http://www.pdamd.com 10 6 60,00 % 01.10.02 185http://www.freewarepalm.com 24 16 66,67 % 01.10.02 3510http://www.memoware.com 18 11 61,11 % 02.10.02 3359http://www.gy.com 10 8 80,00 % 01.10.02 0http://cearchives.cearchives.com 39 26 66,67 % 01.10.02 574http://www.ipaqsoft.net 28 18 64,29 % 01.10.02 4039http://www.mobilecoders.com 9 6 66,67 % 01.10.02 1289http://pie.concord.org 28 16 57,14 % 01.10.02 53http://www.microsoft.com 7 5 71,43 % 01.10.02 8063http://www.freepoc.de 11 8 72,73 % 01.10.02 25http://midlet.org 5 5 100,00 % 01.10.02 306http://www.microjava.com 8 5 62,50 % 01.10.02 271http://downloads-zdnet.com.com 8 6 75,00 % 01.10.02 2389http://www.vnunet.com 10 9 90,00 % 01.10.02 151http://www.pcworld.com 01.10.02 0http://www.mobilecomputing.com 01.10.02 0http://www.mobileinfo.com 01.10.02 0http://half.ebay.com 13 7 53,85 % 01.10.02 0http://www.digitalriver.com 01.10.02 0http://standalone.com 01.10.02 0http://www.handango.com 13 11 84,62 % 01.10.02 21008http://www.rocketdownload.com 7 6 85,71 % 01.10.02 110http://www.handheldcomputerdepot.com 4 4 100,00 % 01.10.02 181SUM 93160



Productivity Category names Category number

Total number of

applicationshttp://software.palm.com Personal

Productivity 1 2557http://www.pdastreet.com 1 3http://www.penreader.com http://www.collectivemed.com http://www.pdacentral.com 1 671http://computers.lycos.com 1 722http://download.com.com http://www.handheldnews.com http://www.palmgear.com 1 http://www.hpc.net http://www.pdamd.com http://www.freewarepalm.com http://www.memoware.com http://www.gy.com http://cearchives.cearchives.com http://www.ipaqsoft.net http://www.mobilecoders.com http://pie.concord.org http://www.microsoft.com Personal

Productivity 1 1736http://www.freepoc.de http://midlet.org http://www.microjava.com 1 44http://downloads-zdnet.com.com http://www.vnunet.com http://www.pcworld.com http://www.mobilecomputing.com http://www.mobileinfo.com http://half.ebay.com http://www.digitalriver.com http://standalone.com http://www.handango.com Personal

Productivity 1 3322http://www.rocketdownload.com http://www.handheldcomputerdepot.com SUM 8 9055



Science Category names Category number

Total number of

applicationshttp://software.palm.com http://www.pdastreet.com http://www.penreader.com http://www.collectivemed.com Calculators 1 10http://www.pdacentral.com Calculators 1 188http://computers.lycos.com Calculators 1 292http://download.com.com http://www.handheldnews.com Calculators 1 23http://www.palmgear.com Science 1 1069http://www.hpc.net Calculators 1 56http://www.pdamd.com Calculators 1 19http://www.freewarepalm.com Genealogy, Calculator 2 250http://www.memoware.com Math & Science, Engineering, Law &

Gov't 3 514http://www.gy.com http://cearchives.cearchives.com Calculators 1 33http://www.ipaqsoft.net http://www.mobilecoders.com Energy/Construction/Mining, Laws

Enforcement 2 338http://pie.concord.org Algebra, Biology, botany, Math,

Trigonometry, Science, Social studies, Zoology, Calvulus, Chemistry, Physics, Physical, Education 13 48

http://www.microsoft.com http://www.freepoc.de Astronomy, Conversion, Mathematics 3 2http://midlet.org http://www.microjava.com http://downloads-zdnet.com.com http://www.vnunet.com http://www.pcworld.com http://www.mobilecomputing.com http://www.mobileinfo.com http://half.ebay.com http://www.digitalriver.com http://standalone.com http://www.handango.com/ http://www.rocketdownload.com http://www.handheldcomputerdepot.com SUM 13 2842



Database Category names Category number

Total number of

applicationshttp://software.palm.com 1 601http://www.pdastreet.com http://www.penreader.com http://www.collectivemed.com http://www.pdacentral.com http://computers.lycos.com http://download.com.com http://www.handheldnews.com 1 20http://www.palmgear.com 1 1154http://www.hpc.net 1 31http://www.pdamd.com 1 2http://www.freewarepalm.com 1 744http://www.memoware.com http://www.gy.com http://cearchives.cearchives.com 1 18http://www.ipaqsoft.net Database and mapping software 1 100http://www.mobilecoders.com http://pie.concord.org http://www.microsoft.com http://www.freepoc.de http://midlet.org http://www.microjava.com http://downloads-zdnet.com.com http://www.vnunet.com http://www.pcworld.com http://www.mobilecomputing.com http://www.mobileinfo.com http://half.ebay.com http://www.digitalriver.com http://standalone.com http://www.handango.com 1 726http://www.rocketdownload.com http://www.handheldcomputerdepot.com SUM 9 3396



Games Category names Category number

Total number of

applicationshttp://software.palm.com Entertainment 2 3523http://www.pdastreet.com 1 7http://www.penreader.com 1 7http://www.collectivemed.com http://www.pdacentral.com 1 1631http://computers.lycos.com 1 1711http://download.com.com 1 432http://www.handheldnews.com Games/Entertainment 1 216http://www.palmgear.com 1 1408http://www.hpc.net 1 284http://www.pdamd.com http://www.freewarepalm.com 1 564http://www.memoware.com Entertainment 1 683http://www.gy.com 1 http://cearchives.cearchives.com Games-Action, Games-

Board, Games-Dice, Games-Misc., Games-Tile 5 154

http://www.ipaqsoft.net 1 1269http://www.mobilecoders.com Entertainment/Games 1 250http://pie.concord.org http://www.microsoft.com Entertainment 1 1661http://www.freepoc.de Games & Leisure 1 9http://midlet.org 1 146http://www.microjava.com 1 124http://downloads-zdnet.com.com 1 922http://www.vnunet.com 1 31http://www.pcworld.com http://www.mobilecomputing.com http://www.mobileinfo.com http://half.ebay.com 1 http://www.digitalriver.com http://standalone.com 1 http://www.handango.com Entertainment 2 5044http://www.rocketdownload.com 1 61http://www.handheldcomputerdepot.com 1 43SUM 25 20137



Utilities Category

names Category number

Total number of

applications http://software.palm.com http://www.pdastreet.com 1 3 http://www.penreader.com 1 20 http://www.collectivemed.com General

Utilities 1 16 http://www.pdacentral.com 1 509 http://computers.lycos.com Miscellaneous 2 1967 http://download.com.com 1 369 http://www.handheldnews.com 1 80 http://www.palmgear.com 1 3168 http://www.hpc.net Misc. Utilities 1 100 http://www.pdamd.com 1 26 http://www.freewarepalm.com Misc/Fun 2 153 http://www.memoware.com Miscellancous 1 514 http://www.gy.com 1 http://cearchives.cearchives.com 1 93 http://www.ipaqsoft.net Tips utilities 1 412 http://www.mobilecoders.com http://pie.concord.org http://www.microsoft.com http://www.freepoc.de 1 10 http://midlet.org 1 96 http://www.microjava.com Miscellaneous 2 81 http://downloads-zdnet.com.com 1 722 http://www.vnunet.com 1 58 http://www.pcworld.com http://www.mobilecomputing.com http://www.mobileinfo.com http://half.ebay.com 1 http://www.digitalriver.com http://standalone.com 1 http://www.handango.com http://www.rocketdownload.com 1 15 http://www.handheldcomputerdepot.com 1 59 SUM 23 8412



Travel Category names Category number

Total number of

applicationshttp://software.palm.com 1 1126http://www.pdastreet.com http://www.penreader.com http://www.collectivemed.com http://www.pdacentral.com 1 324http://computers.lycos.com 1 83http://download.com.com

http://www.handheldnews.com Currency/ Travel/ Maps 1 25

http://www.palmgear.com 1 1387http://www.hpc.net Navigation & Travel 1 26http://www.pdamd.com http://www.freewarepalm.com 1 76http://www.memoware.com 1 535http://www.gy.com http://cearchives.cearchives.com 1 16http://www.ipaqsoft.net Navigation & Travel 1 176http://www.mobilecoders.com http://pie.concord.org http://www.microsoft.com 1 1757http://www.freepoc.de http://midlet.org http://www.microjava.com http://downloads-zdnet.com.com http://www.vnunet.com 1 14http://www.pcworld.com http://www.mobilecomputing.com http://www.mobileinfo.com http://half.ebay.com http://www.digitalriver.com http://standalone.com http://www.handango.com 1 1556http://www.rocketdownload.com 1 9http://www.handheldcomputerdepot.com 1 11SUM 14 7110



Education Category names Category number

Total number of

applicationshttp://software.palm.com Education &

reference 1 2052http://www.pdastreet.com http://www.penreader.com http://www.collectivemed.com http://www.pdacentral.com Education/Reference 1 105http://computers.lycos.com http://download.com.com

http://www.handheldnews.com Education & Translators 1 45

http://www.palmgear.com 1 1961http://www.hpc.net http://www.pdamd.com http://www.freewarepalm.com 1 205http://www.memoware.com http://www.gy.com Home/Education 1 http://cearchives.cearchives.com http://www.ipaqsoft.net Language/ Study 1 232http://www.mobilecoders.com http://pie.concord.org http://www.microsoft.com Education/Reference 1 1412http://www.freepoc.de http://midlet.org http://www.microjava.com http://downloads-zdnet.com.com http://www.vnunet.com 1 6http://www.pcworld.com http://www.mobilecomputing.com http://www.mobileinfo.com http://half.ebay.com 1 http://www.digitalriver.com http://standalone.com http://www.handango.com Education &

Reference 1 3739http://www.rocketdownload.com

http://www.handheldcomputerdepot.com SUM 11 9757



Enhancement Category names Category number

Total number of

applicationshttp://software.palm.com http://www.pdastreet.com Desktop & Shell 1 1http://www.penreader.com http://www.collectivemed.com http://www.pdacentral.com System 1 401http://computers.lycos.com System 1 391http://download.com.com http://www.handheldnews.com http://www.palmgear.com Enhancements 1 1792http://www.hpc.net System management 1 60http://www.pdamd.com http://www.freewarepalm.com http://www.memoware.com http://www.gy.com http://cearchives.cearchives.com Ftp 1 3http://www.ipaqsoft.net http://www.mobilecoders.com http://pie.concord.org http://www.microsoft.com http://www.freepoc.de http://midlet.org http://www.microjava.com http://downloads-zdnet.com.com Interface

Enhancement 1 96http://www.vnunet.com http://www.pcworld.com http://www.mobilecomputing.com http://www.mobileinfo.com http://half.ebay.com http://www.digitalriver.com http://standalone.com http://www.handango.com Software tools 1 1630http://www.rocketdownload.com Enhancemnets 1 15http://www.handheldcomputerdepot.com SUM 9 4389



Development Category namesCategory number

Total number of

applicationshttp://software.palm.com http://www.pdastreet.com Developement 1 0http://www.penreader.com DevTools 1 3http://www.collectivemed.com http://www.pdacentral.com 1 83http://computers.lycos.com 1 86http://download.com.com http://www.handheldnews.com 1 17http://www.palmgear.com http://www.hpc.net 1 94http://www.pdamd.com http://www.freewarepalm.com http://www.memoware.com http://www.gy.com Developer Tools 1 http://cearchives.cearchives.com 1 49http://www.ipaqsoft.net 1 78http://www.mobilecoders.com http://pie.concord.org http://www.microsoft.com http://www.freepoc.de http://midlet.org Developer 1 16http://www.microjava.com http://downloads-zdnet.com.com http://www.vnunet.com Program

developer 1 2http://www.pcworld.com http://www.mobilecomputing.com http://www.mobileinfo.com http://half.ebay.com http://www.digitalriver.com http://standalone.com http://www.handango.com Software tools 1 1630http://www.rocketdownload.com http://www.handheldcomputerdepot.com SUM 12 2058



Translation/books Category names Category number

Total number of

applicationshttp://software.palm.com Documents & addins 1 236http://www.pdastreet.com Ebooks & Documents 1 1http://www.penreader.com Dictionaries 1 168http://www.collectivemed.com Dictionaries 1 4http://www.pdacentral.com Docs, Translation 2 398http://computers.lycos.com Reference & documents,

Books 2 378http://download.com.com

http://www.handheldnews.com Doc. & Ebooks, Education & Translator 2 59

http://www.palmgear.com Language/reference, Docs/eBooks/Reraders 2 2935

http://www.hpc.net Books & readers, Translation & Language 2 70

http://www.pdamd.com http://www.freewarepalm.com Docs 1 390http://www.memoware.com Language 1 121http://www.gy.com http://cearchives.cearchives.com Translation, ebooks 2 55http://www.ipaqsoft.net Language/study, ebooks,

dictionary 3 861http://www.mobilecoders.com http://pie.concord.org http://www.microsoft.com http://www.freepoc.de http://midlet.org http://www.microjava.com http://downloads-zdnet.com.com http://www.vnunet.com Ebooks & magazin 1 5http://www.pcworld.com http://www.mobilecomputing.com http://www.mobileinfo.com http://half.ebay.com http://www.digitalriver.com http://standalone.com http://www.handango.com Docs & add-ins 1 313http://www.rocketdownload.com http://www.handheldcomputerdepot.com SUM 15 5994



Multimedia Category names Category number

Total number of

applicationshttp://software.palm.com http://www.pdastreet.com Multi & Graphics 1 2http://www.penreader.com http://www.collectivemed.com http://www.pdacentral.com Multimedia, Graphics 2 242http://computers.lycos.com Graphics 1 104http://download.com.com Multimedia & Design 1 63http://www.handheldnews.com Music, Art/Sketch/draw 2 25http://www.palmgear.com Sound/Music,

Imaging/Graphics 2 1969http://www.hpc.net Multimedia 1 100http://www.pdamd.com http://www.freewarepalm.com Music/Sound, Graphics 2 409http://www.memoware.com http://www.gy.com Graphics/ desktop

publishing 1 http://cearchives.cearchives.com Sound 1 15http://www.ipaqsoft.net Music, Multimedia &

video, graphics 3 213http://www.mobilecoders.com http://pie.concord.org Music 1 0http://www.microsoft.com http://www.freepoc.de http://midlet.org Graphics 1 26http://www.microjava.com Graphics 1 22http://downloads-zdnet.com.com

Multimedia & Design 1 63http://www.vnunet.com Audio, Graphics 2 8http://www.pcworld.com http://www.mobilecomputing.com http://www.mobileinfo.com http://half.ebay.com Graphics 1 http://www.digitalriver.com http://standalone.com http://www.handango.com http://www.rocketdownload.com http://www.handheldcomputerdepot.com SUM 17 3261



Medisin/Health Category names Category number

Total number of

applicationshttp://software.palm.com 1 668http://www.pdastreet.com http://www.penreader.com http://www.collectivemed.com Drug guide, Patient

Tracking 2 184http://www.pdacentral.com 1 301http://computers.lycos.com http://download.com.com

http://www.handheldnews.com Medical and Healthcare 1 34

http://www.palmgear.com Medical/Health 1 700http://www.hpc.net Health and Medical 1 22http://www.pdamd.com Drug, patient, aids 3 138http://www.freewarepalm.com 1 217http://www.memoware.com Medical, Food &

Nutrition 2 496http://www.gy.com http://cearchives.cearchives.com 1 6http://www.ipaqsoft.net Medical 1 235http://www.mobilecoders.com Medical/Health 1 345http://pie.concord.org Health 1 1http://www.microsoft.com http://www.freepoc.de http://midlet.org http://www.microjava.com http://downloads-zdnet.com.com http://www.vnunet.com http://www.pcworld.com http://www.mobilecomputing.com http://www.mobileinfo.com http://half.ebay.com http://www.digitalriver.com http://standalone.com http://www.handango.com 1 828http://www.rocketdownload.com http://www.handheldcomputerdepot.com SUM 14 4175



Security Category

names Category number

Total number of

applications http://software.palm.com http://www.pdastreet.com http://www.penreader.com http://www.collectivemed.com http://www.pdacentral.com http://computers.lycos.com http://download.com.com http://www.handheldnews.com http://www.palmgear.com http://www.hpc.net http://www.pdamd.com http://www.freewarepalm.com http://www.memoware.com http://www.gy.com http://cearchives.cearchives.com Encrypt/Security 1 9 http://www.ipaqsoft.net Security 1 33 http://www.mobilecoders.com http://pie.concord.org http://www.microsoft.com http://www.freepoc.de Security 1 1 http://midlet.org http://www.microjava.com http://downloads-zdnet.com.com http://www.vnunet.com http://www.pcworld.com http://www.mobilecomputing.com http://www.mobileinfo.com http://half.ebay.com http://www.digitalriver.com http://standalone.com http://www.handango.com http://www.rocketdownload.com 1 5 http://www.handheldcomputerdepot.com SUM 4 48



Financial/ Business Category names Category number

Total number of

applicationshttp://software.palm.com Bussiness &

proffesional 1 1645http://www.pdastreet.com Business 1 1http://www.penreader.com http://www.collectivemed.com Coding & Billing 1 6http://www.pdacentral.com Finance 1 210http://computers.lycos.com Finance 1 17http://download.com.com Business 1 139http://www.handheldnews.com financial 1 36http://www.palmgear.com Business 1 1050http://www.hpc.net Finance 1 35http://www.pdamd.com http://www.freewarepalm.com Business, Financial 2 107http://www.memoware.com Bussiness 1 304http://www.gy.com Bussiness 1 http://cearchives.cearchives.com Business, Banking &

Finance 2 20http://www.ipaqsoft.net Finance 1 305http://www.mobilecoders.com Finance/Acct 1 356http://pie.concord.org Business 1 4http://www.microsoft.com Business/Proffesional 1 1497http://www.freepoc.de Financial 1 1http://midlet.org http://www.microjava.com http://downloads-zdnet.com.com Business 1 385http://www.vnunet.com Business & Office 1 26http://www.pcworld.com http://www.mobilecomputing.com http://www.mobileinfo.com http://half.ebay.com Business & Office 1 http://www.digitalriver.com http://standalone.com http://www.handango.com Business & Proffesional 1 2220http://www.rocketdownload.com http://www.handheldcomputerdepot.com Business 1 68SUM 22 8364



Internet/ Network/ Communication Category names

Category number

Total number

of applicati

ons http://software.palm.com http://www.pdastreet.com Internet & Communication 1 0http://www.penreader.com http://www.collectivemed.com http://www.pdacentral.com Communication, Internet,

Connectivity 3 441http://computers.lycos.com Communication, Internet,

Connectivity, Internet Tools 4 852http://download.com.com Internet 1 98http://www.handheldnews.com Communication, Internet 2 67http://www.palmgear.com Communication 1 1509http://www.hpc.net Connectivity 1 129http://www.pdamd.com http://www.freewarepalm.com Communication, Internet Palm PQA 2 395http://www.memoware.com Communication 1 192http://www.gy.com Communication, Inter/Intra/Extranet 2 http://cearchives.cearchives.com Fax, E-mail, FTP, Phone Dialers,

Internet 5 70http://www.ipaqsoft.net IR, Internet/Email/Network 2 125http://www.mobilecoders.com http://pie.concord.org http://www.microsoft.com http://www.freepoc.de Communication 1 2http://midlet.org Internet 1 22http://www.microjava.com http://downloads-zdnet.com.com Internet 1 201http://www.vnunet.com Internet 1 1http://www.pcworld.com http://www.mobilecomputing.com http://www.mobileinfo.com http://half.ebay.com Internet & communication, Network 2 http://www.digitalriver.com http://standalone.com http://www.handango.com http://www.rocketdownload.com Internet 1 5http://www.handheldcomputerdepot.com SUM 18 4109



Notes/ Handwriting Category namesCategory number

Total number of

applications http://software.palm.com http://www.pdastreet.com http://www.penreader.com Handwriting 1 3 http://www.collectivemed.com http://www.pdacentral.com http://computers.lycos.com http://download.com.com http://www.handheldnews.com http://www.palmgear.com http://www.hpc.net Handwriting 1 17 http://www.pdamd.com http://www.freewarepalm.com http://www.memoware.com http://www.gy.com http://cearchives.cearchives.com Handwriting,

Notes, Text entry 3 33 http://www.ipaqsoft.net http://www.mobilecoders.com http://pie.concord.org http://www.microsoft.com http://www.freepoc.de http://midlet.org http://www.microjava.com http://downloads-zdnet.com.com http://www.vnunet.com http://www.pcworld.com http://www.mobilecomputing.com http://www.mobileinfo.com http://half.ebay.com http://www.digitalriver.com http://standalone.com http://www.handango.com http://www.rocketdownload.com http://www.handheldcomputerdepot.com SUM 3 53



Appendix B Verification of the amount of application

Labyrinth v.1.6

Car-byer Eref

WAPman Palm OS Pro 1.8

Comics 1.0.4

RGB-Tester 1.0.1

Math Cooties v.4.0

Quick-world 5.0

http://software.palm.com 1 1 http://www.pdastreet.com http://www.penreader.com http://www.collectivemed.com http://www.pdacentral.com 1 http://computers.lycos.com 1 1 http://download.com.com 1 1 http://www.handheldnews.com http://www.palmgear.com 1 1 1 http://www.hpc.net http://www.pdamd.com 1http://www.freewarepalm.com 1 1 http://www.memoware.com http://www.gy.com http://cearchives.cearchives.com http://www.ipaqsoft.net 1 http://www.mobilecoders.com http://pie.concord.org 1http://www.microsoft.com 1 http://www.freepoc.de http://midlet.org 1 1 http://www.microjava.com http://downloads-zdnet.com.com 1 1 http://www.vnunet.com http://www.pcworld.com http://www.mobilecomputing.com http://www.mobileinfo.com http://half.ebay.com http://www.digitalriver.com http://standalone.com http://www.handango.com 1 1 http://www.rocketdownload.com http://www.handheldcomputerdepot.com Sum 3 1 2 8 1 1 4 2



Appendix C Customers of ePocket Company Name

Name

Situated

Telephone number

Lillehammer Elektro AS (Ringsaker Elektro AS)

Geir Bjerke

Lillehammer

62 33 19 37

Elektrisk Produktion AS

Tore Reppesgård

Drammen

32 26 62 00

Haltuff & Ihlebæk AS

Runar Haltuff

Oslo

22 67 89 00

ELAJO

Erik Stray

Oslo

23 12 86 66

Tjøme El. Installasjon AS

Svenn Åge Frogner

Tjøme

33 39 08 23



Appendix D Questionnaire Spørreundersøkelse om bruk av mobile enheter i mobilt arbeid Denne spørreundersøkelsen prøver å kartlegge bruken av mobiltelefoner og PDAer i mobilt arbeid. Mobilt arbeid er arbeid som ikke skjer på et fast kontor. F. eks jobber en rørlegger og en sykehuslege mobilt. Et arbeid kan være mer eller mindre mobilt. En som arbeider på kontor, men som drar på forretningsreise jobber mobilt når hun reiser. Når du svarer på denne undersøkelsen skal du relatere spørsmålene mot jobb din i ditt mobile arbeid. Målet med undersøkelsen er å kartlegge bruk av mobiltelefon, PDA og programvarer i mobilt arbeid. Vi vil avdekke fordeler og svakheter ved slikt bruk. Resultatene vil påvirke utviklingen av disse enhetene slik at de blir bedre tilpasset mobilt arbeid. Når du svarer på spørsmålene så kryss i ruten for det svaret som er riktig eller mest riktig Bakgrunnsinformasjon 1 Bedriftens kommune: _________________________________ 2 Din alder: _______________________ 3 Yrke: ___________________________ 4 Ditt kjønn:

Mann Kvinne

5 Hvor stor er bedriften? (Sett kun ett kryss.)

Liten, 1-30 ansatte Mellomstor, 31-80 ansatte Stor, mer enn 80 ansatte Annet:_______________________



6 Hvilken bransje tilhører bedriften? (Sett kun ett kryss.)

• Håndverker: Rørlegger Elektriker Maler Snekker Entreprenør Frisør Bygg Låsesmed Feier Tele installatør Anleggsarbeider Annen, skriv hvilket:

_____________

• Transport: Buss Sykkelbud Annen budtjeneste Fly Drosje Båt Trailertransport Pakke transport Annen, skriv

hvilket:_______________ Medisin og helsevesen:

Lege Sykepleier Veterinær Annen, skriv hvilken:

_____________

• Reise og fornøyelse: Restaurant /catering Hotell Annen, skriv

hvilket:_______________

• Undervisning og forskning:

Undervisning / forskning Laboratoriums arbeid Trafikkskole Annen, skriv

hvilket:_______________

• Gårdsdrift og industri: Skadedyr utrydder Fiskeoppdrett Offshore Gårdsbruk Fabrikk arbeider Annen, skriv

hvilket:_______________

• Tjenester som yter hjelp: Hushjelp /vaskehjelp Vaktmester IT drifter Vikartjeneste Konsulent Annen, skriv

hvilket:_______________

• Salg og eiendom Butikk Taksering Eiendomsmegler Annen, skriv

hvilket:_______________

Ingen av de overstående, skriv hvilken bransje:______________

7 Hvor mye jobber du mobilt i uka? (Kun ett kryss)

Mindre enn 12 timer Mellom 13 og 28 timer 29 timer eller mer



Mobiltelefon 8 Bruker du mobiltelefon i mobilt arbeid (privat bruk er ikke medregner)? (Kun ett kryss)

Nei. Ja, telefonen(e) er av typen: _________________________

Hvis du svarte nei i spørsmål 8, gå til spørsmål 19 og fortsett der. I denne delen av spørreskjemaet skal du fylle ut informasjon som gjelder bruk av din mobil telefonen i ditt mobile arbeid. Daglig bruk av mobiltelefon 9 Hvor mange ganger i løpet av arbeidsdagen tar du frem din mobiltelefon? (Sett kun ett kryss)

0-4 5-9 10-14 15- 19 20 eller flere

10 Hvor lang tid bruker du som regel til å arbeid på mobiltelefonen hver gang du tar den frem? (Sett kun ett kryss)

0-10 sekunder 10 sekunder – 1 minutt 1 -5 minutter 5-10 minutter 10 eller mer

11 Hvilket utstyr er av og til koblet på din mobiltelefon? (Du kan velge flere alternativer)

Ingen Kamera Ekstra tastatur Handsfree /Headset MP3 Radio Annet, skriv hva: ____________________

Arbeidsoppgaver på mobiltelefon 12 Hvilke funksjoner i mobiltelefonen benyttes i mobilt arbeid? (Du kan velge flere alternativer)

Tale SMS Dataoverføring



Avtalebok Adressebok Annet: _________________________________

13 Hva slags informasjon blir utvekslet når mobiltelefonen brukes? (Du kan velge flere alternativer)

Informasjon om fakturering Personallokering Timeregistrering Utstyrsallokering Motta arbeidsoppgaver Rapportere om arbeidsoppgaver Rapportere arbeidslogg Få informasjon om tidligere registrert arbeid Bruke adressebok /kontaktinformasjon Sende og motta mail Annen oppgave spesifikt for denne bransjen: _________________________

14 Hvem snakker du oftest med i når du bruker mobiltelefonen til å ringe under mobilt arbeid? (Sett kun ett kryss)

Sjefen Underordnende Samarbeidspartnere Kolleger med samme type jobb

15 Er det mulig å laste ned programmer på mobil telefonen?

Nei. Ja, de heter:

Hvis du svarte nei i spørsmål 15, gå til spørsmål 18 og fortsett der. 16 Har du lastet ned noen programmer på din mobil telefon som du bruker i din jobb?

Nei. Ja, de heter: ______________________________________________________

Hvis du svarte nei i spørsmål 16, gå til spørsmål 18 og fortsett der. 17 Hva gjør disse programmene? (Forklar) _____________________________________________________ 18 Er mobiltelefonen din også en PDA?

Nei Ja

Hvis du svarte ja i spørsmål 18, gå til spørsmål 20 og svar på spørsmålene om PDA delen av mobil telefonen.



PDA 19 Bruker du PDA i mobilt arbeid (privat bruk er ikke medregner)? (Kun ett kryss)

Nei Ja, PDAen(e) er av typen:

o Palm o Compaq: o HP: o Casio (serier): o Psion: o Sony: o Handspring o Thosiba

Hvis du svarte nei i spørsmål 19 er du ferdig med spørreskjemaet. Takk for hjelpen. I denne delen av spørreskjemaet skal du fylle ut informasjon som gjelder bruk av PDA. Daglig bruk av PDA 20 Hvor mange ganger i løpet av arbeidsdagen tar du frem din PDA? (Sett kun ett kryss)

0-4 5-9 10-14 15- 19 20 eller flere

21 Hvor lang tid bruker du som regel til å arbeid på PDAen hver gang du tar den frem? (Sett kun ett kryss)

0-10 sekunder 10 sekunder – 1 minutt 1 -5 minutter 5-10 minutter 10 eller mer



22 Hvilket utstyr er av og til koblet på din PDA? (Du kan velge flere alternativer) Ingen Strekkodeleser Voltmeter Ekstra tastatur Mus Skanner Prosjektør Kamera Skriver Annet, skriv hva: ____________________

Arbeidsoppgaver på PDA 23 Hvilke av disse operasjonene gjør du på din mobile enhet? (Du kan velge flere alternativer)

Slår opp for å hente ut informasjon online Skriver ned /registrerer informasjon online Utregning online Slår opp for å hente ut informasjon offline Skriver ned /registrerer informasjon offline Utregning offline

24 Hvilken type arbeidsoppgaver gjøres på PDA: (Du kan velge flere alternativer)

Innskriving av regninger /fakturering Personallokering Timeregistrering Utstyrsallokering Motta arbeidsoppgaver Rapportere om arbeidsoppgaver Skrive arbeidslogg Lese om tidligere registrert arbeid Lese nyheter Reiseregning Ta notater Bruke kalender eller avtalebok Bruke adressebok /kontaktinformasjon Bruker den på presentasjoner Sende og motta mail Annet, skriv hva: ___________________________________________________

25 Hva heter programmet/programmene du bruker på PDAen i mobilt arbeid? Svar:__________________________________________________



26 Har du ideer til andre oppgaver en mobil enhet kunne hjulpet deg med? Svar:__________________________________________________ Problemer ved bruk av PDA 27 Har du opplevd noen av disse fysiske problemer ved bruk av den mobile enheten: (Du kan velge flere alternativer)

Kulde gjør at den blir tregere å bruke Sollys gjør det vanskelig å se skjermen Tastene er for små Enheten er for stor til å ha med seg Regn og snø gjør at den ikke kan brukes ute Er fargeblind og ser ikke forskjell mellom rød og grønn Hanskebruk i arbeidet gjør det vanskelig å bruke den Glemmer å lade den, eller det er vanskelig å få ladet den Det er dårlig nettverksforbindelse der du jobber Tar med feil PDA fordi de er like Annet, skriv hva: __________________________________

28 Hvilke vanskeligheter møtte dere når PDAen ble innført i bedriften? (Du kan velge flere alternativer.)

Den mobile enheten virket ikke Programmet støttet ikke arbeidet som forventet Det tok lang tid å lære bruken av PDAen Tilpassing av programmet til bedriftens behov Kostnadene for innføringen ble større enn forventet Motstant blant ansatte mot å ta i bruk PDAen Arbeidet ble ikke like effektivt som før innføringen Mye feilregistrering Tar lang tid å skrive ned data Måtte dobbeltregistrere data Dårligere arbeidsmiljø fordi ansatte ser mindre til hverandre Følte at man fikk mindre kontroll over bedriften Annet, skriv hva:____________________________________ Ingen

Synkronisering 29 Hvordan synkroniserer du din PDA? (Sett kun ett kryss)

Modem og telefonledning Nettverkskort med wireless lan 802.11b eller fysisk nettverkskabel Ir direkte til målet eller til mobiltelefon som sender videre Bluetooth til målet eller til mobiltelefon som sender videre Direkte med cradle



30 Hvor ofte synkroniseres du din PDA? (Sett kun ett kryss) Hele tiden. Har nettverkskort og synker fortløpende Hele tiden. Har Bluetooth og synker fortløpende med mobiltelefon. Mer enn 9 ganger i uka 7-9 ganger i uka 4-6 ganger i uka 1-3 ganger i uka Færre enn en gang i uka

Takk for at du samarbeidet ☺



Appendix E List of databases ACM (Association for Computing Machinery): This database consists of articles and proceedings from 32 periodicals within computer science, informatics and electronic. AGI Source Book: Cover geography and engineering subject. Artikelbasen: This is a Danish article database that contains abstracts to articles in Danish newspapers, Danish periodical and other Danish publication. The database covers all spheres. Bibsys: All bibliographic data are collected in the bibliographic database and this database is shared for the whole country. This database contains information about books, series, periodicals and more from the Norwegian technical and research library. Civil Engineering Database: An overview over all ASCE – documents since 1972. That includes periodicals, magazines, newsletters, conference proceedings, books, standards and manuals within many engineering subjects. Compendex: The biggest bibliographic database within technological subjects. Digital Dissertations: This contains thesis for the doctorates and post-graduates from American universities and high schools from 1861. EELS ( Engineering Electronic Library, Sweden): Contains resources within physics, mathematics, energy, nuclear power, light and optic, computer science, polar research, general technique and polar technique. EEVL (Edinburgh Engineering Virtual Library): The UK gateway to quality engineering information on the Internet. Ei Village: This is a database that contains data from the following databases: Engineering Village 2, Compendex, CRC Press Handbooks and other. Electronics Engineers' Handbook: Book of reference for electronics, data techniques, IT, mathematics and material techniques. Forskpro: National database for research projects. Forskpub: National database for research publications. IEL: 160 periodicals within electronics, computer science and machine. In addition, this database contains reports from conferences and standards like IEEE and IEE. INSPEC: Database with periodicals, conferences, books and rapports, equivalent to Physics Abstracts, Electronics Abstracts, and Control Abstracts. JCR (Journal Citation Reports - Science Edition): Database that contains quotes data from approximately 5000 periodicals within natural science, medicine and technology.



Landolt-Börnspherestein: Book of reference within physic, chemistry and technology. NTIS (National Technical Information Service): Rapports from research project by the American publicity institutions and institutions around the world. ScienceDirect - Elsevier: More than 1200 scientific periodicals within natural science, technique, medicine, psychology and economy. Springer: More than 480 scientific periodicals within natural science, technique and medicine. UnCover: Reference to more than 18.000 English written periodicals. This database has daily updating Gale Group Personal Compute Abstracts, CMP Computer Fulltext and Computer News Fulltext are all databases that contain articles of the topic computer science.



Appendix F Keywords from database search Below are the keywords we used in our searches.

Hand-held, handheld, hand held Portable Application, Applications Mobile work, mobile-work Mobile phone Cellular phone Palmtop PDA, personal digital assistent Categorisation Classification Program Software Survey Review Transport Restaurant Doctors Education

The last four keywords are domain specific for areas in which we hoped that would be related to mobile work.



Appendix G Customers of ePocket

Customer Name Postal code City

Telephone number

Alta El. Installasjon AS 9515 Alta 78 43 68 84 Rørleggermester Arne Nilsen 1608 Fredrikstad 69 31 02 03 Arne Rongve AS 6057 Ellingsøy 70 15 62 12 Arthur Løvlie & Co. AS 1482 Nittedal 67 07 11 69 Bøifot Installasjon AS 6511 Kristiansund 71 67 09 55 Elektrikerservice AS 7018 Trondheim 73 51 68 20 Elektrisk Produktion AS 3015 Drammen 32 26 62 00 Elektro Assistanse AS 1011 Oslo 22 90 67 80 Elektrofag Jæren 4369 Vigrestad 51 79 11 70 Elektro-Sør AS 4515 Mandal 38 27 13 90 Haltuff & Ihlebæk AS 0560 Oslo 22 67 89 00 Kragerø Elektriske AS 3770 Kragerø 35 98 65 60 Krøderen Elektro AS 3535 Krøderen 32 14 70 50 Lillehammer Elektro AS / Ringsaker Elektro AS 2390 Moelv 62 36 83 00 Lysmester'n 0580 Oslo 23 37 80 90 Pet Installasjon AS 3117 Tønsberg 33 30 13 90 PK Service AS 7443 Trondheim 73 53 23 59 Romerike Elservice 2008 Fjerdingby 64 80 28 50 Romerike Energi AS 2003 Lillestrøm 81 03 00 90 Rørleggermester Arild Lysebo 3282 Kvelde 33 11 22 88 Sandefjord Elektro AS 3206 Sandefjord 33 42 32 00 Tjøme El. Installasjon AS 3145 Tjøme 33 39 08 23 TT Elektro AS 1350 Lommedalen 67 56 02 56 Årdalsbakke Elektro AS 6850 Skei 57 72 63 60



Appendix H Glossary The following is a list of technical words used in the report. The definitions are written with the purpose of explaining the field of mobile work and mobile devices. Ad-hoc tasks – a task that is not planned comes up. An example: an electrician has the whole day planed to every detail. A lady sees the electrician in the street and asks him to help her with some cables in her home. The electrician executes the task. Bar code reader - is a handheld or stationary input device used to capture and read information contained in a bar code. A barcode reader consists of a scanner, a decoder and a cable used to connect the reader with a computer. Because a barcode reader merely captures and translates the barcode into numbers and/or letters, the data must be sent to a computer so that a software application can make sense of the data. A barcode reader works by directing a beam of light across the bar code and measuring the amount of light that is reflected back. [36] Bluetooth - is an industrial specification that describes how mobile phones, computers, and PDAs easily can interconnect with each other using a short-range wireless connection. Using this technology, users of mobile phones and PDAs will be able to be quickly synchronized with the information at a desktop or notebook computer, initiate sending of a fax, a print-out, and in general, let all mobile and fixed computing devices be coordinated. The maximum range is 10 meter in radius around the receiver. Data can be exchanged at a rate of 1 megabit per second. [56] CDMA – see Code-division multiple access. Cellular phone – see mobile phone Code-division multiple access (CDMA) - is a form of multiplexing. Is the same as Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS). Technology based on allowing numerous signals to occupy a single transmission channel, optimizing the use of available bandwidth. Therefore it does not assign a specific frequency to each user.. The CDMA channel is nominally 1.23 MHz wide. The combination of digital and spread-spectrum modes supports several times as many signals per unit bandwidth as analog modes [56]. Communicator - see smart phone Cradle - the device that the handheld is connected to synchronizing data with a PC, or for downloading applications. This is also used to recharge the batteries of the handheld device [58]. General Packet Radio Services (GPRS) - is a packet-based wireless communication service that promises data rates from 56 up to 114 Kbps and continuous connection to the Internet for mobile phone and computer users. The high data rates will allow users to take part in video conferences and interact with multimedia Web sites and similar applications using mobile handheld devices. GPRS is based on Global System for Mobile (GSM) communication and will complement existing services such circuit-switched cellular phone connections and the



Short Message Service (SMS). In theory, GPRS packet-based service is less expensive than circuit-switched services since communication channels are being used on a shared-use, as-packets-are-needed basis rather than dedicated only to one user at a time [56]. Global System for Mobile communication (GSM) - is a digital mobile telephone system that is widely used in Europe and other parts of the world. GSM uses a variation of time division multiple access (TDMA) and is the most widely used of the three digital wireless telephone technologies (TDMA, GSM, and CDMA). GSM digitizes and compresses data, then sends it down a channel with two other streams of user data, each in its own time slot. It operates at either the 900 MHz or 1800 MHz frequency band. GSM is the de facto wireless telephone standard in Europe. GSM has over 120 million users worldwide [56]. GPRS – see General Packet Radio Services. Grafitti - There are several ways of entering data into a PDA. One approach is to use a writing instrument called a stylus, which resembles a pen without ink, to write alphabetic and numeric characters on the screen. The PDA recognizes these characters as if they were keyboard entries. Graffiti is the trade name for the specialized set of characters that the Palm recognize and the program that allows input using this set of characters is also called Graffiti. The main difference between Graffiti and conventional handwriting is the fact that all the can characters must consist of a single continuous stroke of the stylus. For some letters this makes little or no difference. For a few letters, Graffiti is significantly different than conventional handwriting. Below, an example of the word GRAFFITI is written in Graffiti. [57]

Figure H0-1: The word GRAFITTI written in Graffiti

GSM – see Global System for Mobile communication. Handheld computer – see personal digital assistent Handheld device - a small computer that literally fits in your palm. The word handheld device is most often used about mobile wireless devices [57]. Hot Sync - is the registered trade name for a sophisticated method of linking between a Palm handheld computer and a notebook, desktop, or other computer. Such a link can be done using a so-called HotSync cable, or using a wireless connection. Direct linking between computers eliminates the need for cumbersome disks or tapes when data must be copied from one hard drive to another [56]. Hotsync cradle – See cradle Heterogeneous network – is the characteristic of containing dissimilar constituents. It describes a product as able to contain or be part of a "heterogeneous network," consisting of different manufacturers' products that can "interoperate." Heterogeneous networks are made possible by standards-conforming hardware and software interfaces used in common by



different products, thus allowing them to communicate with each other. The Internet itself is an example of a heterogeneous network. [56] Hybrid telephone - see smart phone IR – see infrared radiation Infrared radiation (IR) - is used in a variety of wireless communications, monitoring, and control applications. A few of the applications include home-entertainment remote-control boxes, wireless local area networks, links between PDAs and mobile phones, cordless modems and fire sensors. IR in a PDA can have a range of maximum 3 meter with free sight and can have a speed of 0.12 megabit per second [56]. Java technology - A high-level object-oriented programming language developed by Sun Microsystems. Java is a general purpose programming language and the language is well suited for use on the World Wide Web. Small Java programs can be downloaded from a Web server and run on mobile phones that supports this kind of applications. [57] MMS – see multimedia messaging Mob-I – a conceptual design for a “wireless information device” (WID) that the Aaron Marcus and Eugene Chen [21] has named “Mob-I”. It is not wrong to think at “Mob-I” as a fiction smart phone. This “Mob-I” tries to predict how future smart phones will be. Mobile device - Any device that can easily be transported, this means that the device must be small and lightweight. A mobile computer is a computer small enough to carry. In context of our project, a mobile device is either personal digital assistant (PDA) or mobile phone. These two mobile devices can also be called handheld device. Mobile Internet - gaining access to the Internet using a lightweight, handheld device. [11] Mobile phone - a cordless telephone. Some mobile phones can connect to the Internet via a datacard, which converts computer data into a form that can be passed over the network and vice versa. Mobile software - Anything that can be stored electronically on a PDA or a mobile phone is software. When someone gets a new program on their PDA, they will then get a new mobile software. Mobile work – in order to perform mobile work, the worker must change location. An example of a mobile work is the work performed by an electrician. He has to visit the customers to perform work. Multimedia messaging (MMS) - the ability to send messages comprising of a combination of formatted text, images, voice- or audioclips, videoclips and presentation information to MMS capable handsets [57]. Nomadic work – work performed away from the usual place of work (if there are any). Mobile work can be looked upon as a subset of nomadic work. There are two types of



nomadic work, global and local. Global nomadic work is work performed away from the building where usual place of work is located. Local nomadic work is work performed in the same building, but away from the usual work place. The degree of mobility in nomadic work varies. Nomadic work can be performed trough a telecommunication network, thus carried out at home instead of the office. Palmtop - see personal digital assistant PDA - see personal digital assistant Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) - a lightweight, handheld computer designed for use as a personal organizer. A PDA can have communication capabilities. Most often they support features among other things graffiti style data entry and personal information management. A typical PDA has no keyboard, relying instead on special hardware and pen-based computer software to enable the recognition of handwritten input, which is entered on the surface of the touch-sensitive screen. [57]. Pervasive computing - the trend towards increasingly ubiquitous connected computing devices in the environment, based on Mark Weiser vision from 1991 [22]. This trend is the result of the computer technology that is advancing at exponential speed. Pervasive computing devices are very tiny, even invisible devices. They can be mobile or embedded in almost any type of object imaginable, including cars, tools, appliances, clothing and various consumer goods, all communicating through increasingly interconnected networks. This communication will become so naturalized within the environment that people will not even realize that they are using computers. Researchers think these ubiquitous computing devices will be as easily available and accessible as oxygen is to people today [56]. PIM – see Portable Information Manager. Pocket computer – see personal digital assistant Portable device - see mobile device Portable Information Manager (PIM) - is software and/or a web designed to help users organize information. Most PIMs enables the user to enter various kinds of textual notes like reminders, lists and dates. Many PIMs also include address book, calendar, todo lists with reminders, scheduling and calculator programs. A PIM can sometimes even be tied into a mobile phone or PDA [30]. Remote access server (RAS) - is the computer and associated software that is set up to handle users seeking access to networks remotely. A remote access server usually includes or is associated with a firewall server to ensure security and a router that can forward the remote access request to another part of the corporate network. A remote access server may include or work with a modem pool manager so that a small group of modems can be shared among a large number of intermittently present remote access users [59]. Remote worker – see nomadic work SMS – see short message service



Short Message Service (SMS) - transmission of short text messages to and from a mobile phone. Messages must be no longer than 160 alphanumeric characters and contain no images or graphics [57]. Smart phone - in addition to function as an ordinary mobile phone, a smartphone have features like a PDA. Sync cradle – see cradle Telecommuting - see telework Telework - use of telecommunication in order to work away from the usual place of work. Telework can be carried out at home, at another desk than the one usually used or in a mobile situation. The distinctions between telework and nomadic work are minor. Telework focuses on the capability to communication thought the telecommunication, but nomadic work is more focused on the fact that a worker is away from the usual place of work. Text messaging - see short message service Touch sensitive screen –A touch screen is a computer display screen that is sensitive to human touch, allowing a user to interact with the computer by touching pictures or words on the screen. Some applications are designed specifically for touch screen technology. Monitors are available with built-in touch screen technology or individuals can purchase a touch screen kit. [56] WAP - see wireless application protocol Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) – is a specification for a set of communication protocols to standardize the way that wireless devices, such as cellular telephones and radio transceivers can be used for Internet access, including e-mail, the World Wide Web, newsgroups, and Internet Relay Chat. It also allows users to access information instantly via handheld wireless devices such as mobile phones and smart phones. WAP is specifically designed for small screens and one-hand navigation without a keyboard [56]. Wireless local area network (LAN) - a wireless LAN is a local area network where a mobile user can connect to through a wireless connection. High-bandwidth allocation for wireless communication will make possible a relatively low-cost wiring of classrooms. A similar frequency allocation has been made in Europe. Hospitals and businesses are also expected to install wireless LAN systems [6].

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