The WDN Symbian DevZone... UltraLite and the Symbian OS

by Richard Bloor, October 14, 2002

At Sybase’s recent Techwave conference, subsidiary iAnywhere Solutions showcased a mobile banking application for the Sony Ericsson P800 utilizing the Java implementation of its SQL Anywhere Studio mobile database and synchronization solution. This week we look at the history of iAnywhere Solutions and the development options open to the Symbian developer with Mike Paola and Erik Larsen.

According to Gartner Dataquest, iAnywhere Solutions has an impressive 68% share of the mobile database market. Mike Paola, Group Product Manager, was able to provide some equally impressive numbers saying, “we have over 7 million deployed licenses and over 700 application partners have embedded our technology within their products. Further we have over 10 thousand corporate customers, many of which top the Fortune 500 list, and cover market areas such as HealthCare, Finance, Field Force Automation, Energy and Utility.”

iAnywhere Solutions product portfolio is centered around mobile database and synchronization software and is complemented by mobile middleware, mail and deployment management software. SQL Anywhere Studio, the company’s mobile and embedded database solution, includes two main database technologies: Adaptive Server Anywhere and UltraLite.

Adaptive Server Anywhere is an enterprise class database targeted at the mobile and embedded markets. Typically it is used by ISV’s bundling it with their own laptop or handheld products.

Adaptive Server Anywhere is a complete stand-alone small footprint database while UltraLite, their second database product, is designed to have an even smaller footprint for use in handhelds and smartphones. This is achieved by allowing the developer to create an application specific database that pulls in only the features that are required. Mike claims that “this means it is possible to develop an UltraLite application as small as 200 to 300k.”

So what is it about iAnywhere Solutions’ products that have given them this strong position? Mike Paola attributes their success “to a focus on clear design goals which makes our products easy to use right from installation through to development.” The example that Mike gave includes excellent out of box performance that does not require the user to be a database expert, consultant or DBA. He also points to cross platform support. In addition to running on Windows environments, iAnywhere database technology is supported on Unix platforms such as Solaris and Linux, as well as handheld operating systems such as Pocket PC, Palm and Symbian - which means that iAnywhere Solutions can support virtually all development needs. Interoperability and openness were also highlighted by Mike - being able to operate within a heterogeneous data environment and the openness to various programming standards such as ODBC and JDBC.

It is perhaps an understanding of wireless issues where one of iAnywhere Solutions’ greatest strength lies. “We all recognize the challenges of the mobile environment with wireless coverage bandwidth and the cost of wireless transmissions” said Mike. “So providing the ability to store data offline on mobile device with full transactional integrity and then synchronize it back to the enterprise is a real benefit that our customers are looking for. I believe we have the technology to allow literally anyone looking to deploy mobile databases and conduct business anywhere, to achieve their goal.”

iAnywhere Solutions started looking at support for the Symbian OS in 1999 when they created a Beta version of a native C++ implementation in their version 6.x product line. This was at the time when the Symbian OS was known as Epoc. This first implementation did not generate a lot of feedback from the Beta customers. They again provided a native C++ beta in the 7.x product line and increased the promotion, but again there did not seem to be a lot of interest generated. Mike commented that, “the feedback we got from our customers was that they were looking to use more productive languages, like Java or Visual Basic. So we first focused our efforts on the Java version of UltraLite. Part of the reason for this seemed to be that the development tools for Symbian available at that time were lacking in many ways - aspects such as debugging capability, and the requirement for separate compilers depending on whether you were building for the emulator or devices. Even now, with solid tools like CodeWarrior, our customers highlight the challenges created by the fact that each Symbian device uses its own SDK rather than a single SDK which targets all devices, something that they get with other platforms”.

A prototype demonstrated at the recent TechWave conference running a Mobile Banking Terminal application on the Sony Ericsson P800 provides an example of the type of application that can be developed with the Java implementation of UltraLite. The original version of the Mobile Banking Terminal application allows the user both on and off line access to their banking details. In this type of application security is a significant issue and several features have been used to ensure the integrity of both the local data and the connection to the bank. The database storage on the device is encrypted, securing data through total obfuscation, for additional security the database is deleted after three unsuccessful attempts by the user to validate themselves to the system. Synchronization utilizes a 128-bit SSL tunnel. These channels are authenticated using Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) with server-side certificates.

The demo runs over GPRS and connects to a server located in Canada that is populated with account information and transaction history and could be fully synchronized in 15 seconds.

Erik Larsen, European Director Business Development, commented that “the demo shows how a client could interact with their bank, transferring money and paying bills on the new generation of wireless devices. The speed is amazing due to the power of the Sony Ericsson P800 and due to the fact that the code is executed locally. The interface is also so much more attractive and richer than WAP based banking services since we are using the native interface.”

However, this type of application relies on the PersonalJava JVM available on UIQ (the User Interface implementation on the P800) and Nokia’s Series 80. The other major implementation of Symbian OS is Nokia’s Series 60, which supports MIDP.

Mike commented that, “We believe that for enterprise applications, requiring on device data storage, PersonalJava and CDC Personal Profiles are the most appropriate Java runtime environments. We view MIDP-enabled devices as more appropriate for on-line applications rather than off and on-line applications. We would see these MIDP enabled devices utilizing our m-Business Studio and creating thin client applications which connect to back end servers and deliver a user interface via WAP or HTML.”

The other major development has been the introduction of support in the AppForge Visual Basic tools. Mike Paola sees this as a significant addition to the development options for UltraLite commenting that, “AppForge is a great product as it now allows millions of VB developers to target multiple mobile platforms”. In June 2002 iAnywhere introduced the Beta version of the UltraLite component suite for AppForge developers with support for Palm and Pocket PC and are now expecting to release the final product sometime in late October or early November.

One of the strengths of AppForge is that its application framework, called the Piedmont Framework, allows third parties like iAnywhere Solutions to extend AppForge and make it aware of their product. So when you are in the Visual Basic environment and using code completion, for example, Visual Basic is able to provide completion for methods and properties on UltraLite objects. Shortly after the beta of the UltraLite component suite was released, AppForge announced MobileVB 3, their first version to include support for the Nokia 9200 series communicators. To address this additional platform, the UltraLite for Appforge Symbian component is under development and will probably be released to Beta early next year. A full public release date will depend on developer feedback and demand.

In terms of future developments around Symbian Mike commented that, “we are going to continue developing our technology and will be driven by our customers’ needs. Symbian has been dominant in the European markets and that is a very attractive market for us. As we see the emergence of devices in North America, for example the Nokia 9290, it becomes a compelling platform here as well. All the characteristics of the Symbian OS make it ideal for smartphone applications and these same features also mean it is a viable platform for the creation of mobile enterprise applications. We are working to ensure that iAnywhere’s portfolio of mobile database products will be the choice of developers creating these new Symbian applications.”

About the WDN Symbian Editor, Richard Bloor:
Richard Bloor has 16 years experience in the IT industry. His earlier work was largely in design and development of commercial and manufacturing systems but more recently has focused on development and test management of government systems.

Richard Bloor is the Mobile Applications champion at System Architecture consultancy Equinox of Wellington, New Zealand.

Richard can be reached at rbloor@wirelessdevnet.com.

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