What is Smart Client Software

By Constance Kobylarz

We see the next wave of software innovation coming in the development of a category of applications that make fuller use of the power contained in the newest mobile and wireless devices.

Smart client applications are applications which are larger than “Thin” clients but smaller than “Thick” clients. Smart clients take advantage of the greater power available in the latest mobile devices to perform part or all of the operations originally performed on the server.

These “Smart clients,” as Microsoft and others have labeled them, will offer more customization  for each business and business process application than was possible before. They will connect with business systems, networks, web services and other companies’ systems through the use of XML.

What Are Smart Client Applications?

Smart client applications deliver the best of both worlds, combining the reach of the Internet with the power of local computing hardware. Smart client applications have all the power and flexibility of rich or thick client applications, without compromising the ease of deployment and stability of the browser-based applications.

Common Attributes of Smart Client Applications

  • High fidelity user experience that:
    • Exploits the latest in graphics and UI technology
    • Is personalized/individualized for each user based on context
  • Intelligent connection:
    • On/offline intelligence – taking advantage of local data caching and processing
    • Distributed – central corporate data stores and pre/post processing on a server connected through web services
    • Interoperable – Smart Clients can easily access data from many heterogeneous sources
  • Information centric:
    • Data access is loosely coupled
    • Data is easy to retrieve, cache, and post
    • Data access is flexible and granular in setting what, when, and how data is accessed and affected
  • Designed for operations:
    • Secure
    • Centrally deployable
    • Local CPU processing leveraged intelligently
    • Versionable

What Are Microsoft Smart Client Technologies?

Microsoft Smart client technologies are development platforms for building Smart client software applications. Microsoft has three development platforms for Smart clients:

  • Microsoft Office System
  • Microsoft® .NET Framework and Windows Forms
  • Microsoft .NET Compact Framework for Mobile Solutions

Definitions courtesy of Microsoft — Copyright © 2004 Microsoft Corporation

Why Do We Need Smart Client Applications?

Laptops have proven to be indispensable for a number of information worker uses. Industry analysts are predicting that the majority of information workers will be operating on non-desktop machines within the next few years. The advent of Windows CE, XP Embedded and Pocket PC PDAs and Phones has brought the possibility of an unlimited number of form factors, including ruggedized models, to meet the needs of a broader range mobile workers.

While just reusing older applications on these new devices may be expedient, it often does not foster timesaving or cost-saving improvements, nor does it allow for business innovation. By utilizing the greatly increased computing power contained within these new devices, Smart clients can assist the mobile worker to get more work done in less time.

Smart clients may be developed for several form factors using the same development tools. This maximizes development dollars within the IT department. They also offer the ability to work independent of the network and store results in the device database until connected again to upload the results to the server. This can reduce wireless communication costs and improve the performance of particular applications.

Building Mobile “Smart Client” Applications with Aton® Connect

Aton Connect for Pocket PC offers a very high performance, secure and easy to use solution to bring mainframe data to the mobile user via a direct connection to the mainframe. Although displaying mainframe data in its native “green screen” format can be good solution for some uses, the Aton Connect product also allows development of “Smart Client” applications on the mobile device.

What makes our product unique from other 3270 client software is its layered design. The “core” is a .NET component or an ActiveX component (both are available) that communicates with the mainframe. The user interface sits “on top” of the core and can receive the data exactly the way the mainframe presents it (traditional 3270 screen) or can easily be customized to the user’s needs and to take advantage of the unique features of a particular device.

Rather than toggling back and forth between the mainframe screen and the user’s work screen, with Aton Connect the crucial data can be delivered directly to a special user interface (using Visual Basic or C#) for the worker to take immediate action. A custom application can be designed in just days using tools like Visual Studio .NET, Visual Studio 6 or Borland Delphi that will work on a variety of Microsoft Windows Mobile devices to provide high reliability access to mainframe data.

The Aton Connect product includes a .NET component that can be accessed by your Smart client application running on the mobile device. The Aton .NET component allows your Smart client to access 3270 screens and transmit keystroke streams to and from the mainframe application.

Your Smart client application can then display this data to the mobile device screen in any format you choose. Your application can also store data retrieved from the mainframe application for use when the wireless connection is not available. This ability to process data locally on the mobile device, and the ability to work with mainframe data even when disconnected from the wireless network creates a “Smart Client” application that significantly improves overall enterprise system efficiency, as well as reducing wireless costs.

Their small memory and resources footprint makes our products very usable in applications where size is a limitation.  Our low unit pricing and volume discounts, enterprise-wide and source code license options make our products exceedingly affordable.

We provide support via e-mail and phone to help you get your application up and running quickly. If you need security for your data, having the 3270 client installed within the application only on the devices issued to authorized users, rather than loading an applet from a web page or server, can offer substantial advantage. SSL security and FIPS 140 security are offered as special options. Contact us for details.