Why should I use compactframework + VB+ pocketPC 2003 ?

[John Lucas]

My company is in the process of making an enterprise decision about
which (if any) mobile devices to support. We hav a mixed bag of
datasources to work with, including Lotus Notes, SQL Server, Microsoft
Access, Sybase, Oracle... etc....

A big part of the workforce is constantly mobile, and it would be
useful to accomodate handheld applications, such as PIM
synchronization, forms, and other database related applications.

I'm inclined to look at Microsoft , because Microsoft development
tools are a big part of our (RAD) development environment.

With the departure of eVB, it seems as though there is no longer any
way of accessing enterprise data from the handheld, unless it's in SQL
Server (no... copying data to SQL from other sources is not an option)

Also, in a VB environment, there is very little you can do with pim
data on the pocket PC (yes, I know about 3rd party POOM)

There are of course, third party tools, but if I'm going to pay a
license fee for addons to fill the gaps, I have an additional expense,
*and* now I'm locked into a third party tool. Our needs change
rapidly, and thus the need for RAD.

I'm a big fan of deveolping in-house solutions, but it seems like this
one is just out of reach for CF. I'm going to have to buy something,
so it may as well be an "all in one" environment that supports palm as
well. (It's feasible that we could support Pocket PC only, if we could
save by doing in-house development)

Lack of ODBC and POOM are the big ones for me... it's what handhelds
are all about , isn't it?

Thoughts?

 

[Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]]

1) Use Web Services for enterprise data access and use .NET CF for your
non-Palm development, or

2) Build something custom based on DCOM and use eVC for you Windows CE-based
solutions and Visual Studio and DCOM for desktop solutions.

Any all-everything-all-the-time solution is likely to be a bigger nightmare
than you suspect. .NET CF support is just going to get better over time and
it's fairly good right now.

Paul T.

 

[Jon]

We have used Syclo for a few products that needed support on many handheld
platforms from blackberry to Palm and PPC...although, now we're moving to
PPC only so we can develop a single framework based product.

http://www.syclo.com

There is a bit of a learning curve, but they take care of the platform
issues pretty nicely.

 

[John Lucas]

1) Use Web Services for enterprise data access and use .NET CF for your
non-Palm development, or

Certainly a viable option for LAN connected devices, but what about
Handheld to PC apps?

2) Build something custom based on DCOM and use eVC for you Windows CE-based
solutions and Visual Studio and DCOM for desktop solutions.

We're not an eVC shop, so that doesn't help us much. Too bad VB can't
do what VC can.

Any all-everything-all-the-time solution is likely to be a bigger nightmare
than you suspect. .NET CF support is just going to get better over time and
it's fairly good right now.

Paul T.

I think we agree here, it's fairly good now, but it's not there yet. I
need a compelling business case to standardize on PPC, and I just
don't see it.

 

[Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]]

So, when you say "handheld to PC apps", what is it about those that you
think is the sticking point? At some point, they're going to have to be
connected in order to transfer *anything*, so if data transfer is necessary,
then the connection is inevitable. If you are going to connect with
ActiveSync periodically, you can still use Web Services, you just have to
wait until the connection occurs to do it (same with the Palm or
whatever-else scenario).

I'm not going to try to convert you to using all PPC, but my experience with
multi-target environments is not encouraging for having portable code from
platform to platform. I think you'd be better of crafting something for
each basic platform which will then access the data through a common
interface on the desktop or server systems (Web Services or whatever else
you might want, sockets, maybe).

Paul T.

"Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]" <ptobey_no_spam@instrument_no_spam.com> wrote in

1) Use Web Services for enterprise data access and use .NET CF for your
non-Palm development, or

Certainly a viable option for LAN connected devices, but what about
Handheld to PC apps?

2) Build something custom based on DCOM and use eVC for you Windows CE-based
solutions and Visual Studio and DCOM for desktop solutions.

We're not an eVC shop, so that doesn't help us much. Too bad VB can't
do what VC can.

Any all-everything-all-the-time solution is likely to be a bigger nightmare
than you suspect. .NET CF support is just going to get better over time and
it's fairly good right now.

Paul T.

I think we agree here, it's fairly good now, but it's not there yet. I
need a compelling business case to standardize on PPC, and I just
don't see it.