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Business Challenge
Our customer provides an online call management system for home and small businesses. The main features include
phone conferences, call transfer, email delivery of faxes and voicemails, voice-messaging, and documents sharing.
The subscribers can get their messages from any location outside the office, but only using a PC or laptop.
There were many requests from field workers, who had only a mobile phone at their belts, to use the service.
The customer decided to extend the capabilities of the hosted PBX system to mobile phones. Because of the lack
of mobile expertise in-house they looked for a professional Windows Mobile developer.
Software Solution
The Axmor Software proposition indicated technical challenges originating from mobile platform limitations and
defined distinct approaches to their resolution. After Axmor's consultants helped the customer select the most
suitable option from the available resolutions, the customer made a decision to outsource the mobile application
development to Axmor.
The main challenge of the project was to overcome the limitations of the mobile hardware to process voice files,
large bitmap images, and documents with an acceptable performance level. Axmor's developers found a solution
for every issue, and the developed mobile application supports all the functions of the online version.
Integration into the existing software
The mobile application was integrated into the existing web-based Office Phone System. The calls,
voicemails, documents, and faxes are received by the phone number supported by the central server
and are then delivered to the mobile client. Web Services were implemented jointly by the customer
and by Axmor. Mobile developers provided the customer with the guidelines for the server-side Web
Services implementation, considering the specifics of the mobile platform for easy and seamless
integration.
Delivery of voice messages, faxes, and documents
Voice messages, faxes, and documents are delivered directly to the user's mobile phone. The corresponding binary
files are transferred using DIME extensions of WEB Services, which is not supported by standard Web Services
available for Windows Mobile Compact Framework version 1.0. However, it was reasonable to keep using the effective
message-oriented communication model. Axmor developers used OpenNETCF implementation of WEB Services extensions
for DIME support. As a result, the application can exchange binary files with greater performance and less traffic
than other technologies which would allow this.
Recording and Playback
The user can record new voice messages and listen to received voice messages directly on the mobile phone.
The recorder and player use GSM 6.10 audio compression codec, which is a standard for mobile applications.
Fax Viewer
An ability to view incoming faxes is one of the key features of the developed application. The industry standard
for electronic fax delivery is a .tiff format - a high resolution image format that can show all included pages
in one file. Unfortunately, Windows Mobile image viewer does not support .tiff parsing/rendering. Axmor's
developers implemented a custom fax viewer using an open-source CxImage component for parsing and rendering the
TIFF format.
Today's Panel and Data Actualization
The application is designed to deliver the received messages to the user phone immediately. To make the full use of
this feature, there was need of a tool which would inform a user of the new incoming messages without the need to
open the application itself. A Today Panel was developed in full compliance with style and functions, habitual for
the users of Windows Mobile Messenger. It displays the current status of the user's incoming box on the Today screen
of the mobile device.
Application Self-monitoring
The developed mobile application is designed to never freeze and to never cause a crash to the operating system.
In case of any failure, the software analyzes the reason for the failure and always displays a specific error report.
A safe reload is then performed by the system automatically upon user's approval. Any failure is logged to a file
and is submitted to the central server. The customer can then use such logs to polish and improve the software.
However, during the first six months of operation, no critical errors were experienced by the users.
Designed for Windows Mobile
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For the purpose of reliable communication over mobile networks and for better marketing opportunities,
the customer wanted the application to be certified. The developed mobile application was designed to
comply with the requirements of Windows Mobile certification and to get a Code-Sign Certificate.
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The software requirements were brought into the line of Microsoft's "Designed for Windows Mobile Software Application
Handbook for Pocket PCs". The delivered code complies with security standards and it has a user interface designed
according to Microsoft's guidelines. The developed mobile application passed the "Designed for Windows Mobile"
certification in its first attempt, making the certification costs relatively low for Axmor's customer.
The application functions were also analyzed against the requirements of particular mobile carriers before development
was started, so every decision made about the project scope was verified by the customer.
The developed application was successfully put into operation as planned, and later several custom implementations
were made for corporate clients.
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BRIEF:
A hosted office phone system was extended to mobile professionals and field workers.
BENEFITS:
- Designed for Windows Mobile Certification;
- Implementation of every feature in the online version in spite of hardware limitations;
- Large audio, fax, and document files are delivered to the phone with excellent performance.
TOOLS & TECHNOLOGIES:
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