A gateway-based framework for finding and accessing mobile web services

The ability to install new applications on mobile devices has allowed users to fully customize their devices to their needs and preferences. However, there is the problem of developing a different client program for different devices due to device fragmentation or the software and hardware differences of each device. Not only would this incur higher software development costs, but it is also inconvenient for the user to find the appropriate applications for their devices. The use of Web services for some applications may solve this problem as they are platform-independent, but the exchange of XML messages involved with using Web services requires a powerful processor to parse the XML messages. Mobile devices, however, may not be suitable for processing such data and the exchange of such large amount of data over the cellular network may incur heavy data charges. In this paper we introduce a gateway-based framework for mobile devices to find and access Web services through a mobile browser. The results demonstrate the benefits of using a gateway for some applications, as an intermediary between Web services and the mobile device, as well as the effectiveness of the overall framework.