Emergence of Wireless Services:Business Actors and their Roles in Networked Component-based Development: Dissertation

Mobility of wireless services allows their use anywhere and anytime via portable terminals. 3G (Third Generation) technologies with increased transmission speeds are expected to increase the revenue from wireless services significantly for all actors involved in business, especially as they will enable new kinds of services based on versatile business models. A business model is architecture for the product-, service- and information flows, including a description of the various business actors and their roles, the potential benefit for the actors and the sources of revenue. Success in the wireless business requires combining an appropriate business model with an attractive terminal and content, and offering it to the user as an appealing service package. Companies have to select their role and partners in the business network carefully by taking into account the diversity of terminals, networks and software. A large variety of technologies combined with the need to save costs and a faster time-to-market leads towards open interfaces and standards to allow interoperability between different operators and networks, and a predominately component-based approach to service development. The aim of this thesis is to analyse how wireless services can be developed more efficiently in the context of 3G networks by focusing on the actors' roles and component-based development. The business models and roles are illustrated in this research with the aid of two types of wireless services that are under development for 3G networks. Development of the two case services - a multi-player game and a trading on-line (TOL) service - in this research proves the suitability of component-based development to the development of wireless services. To achieve the best results one has to take into account the risks of commercial component use and the initial investments component-based development requires. This research also shows that component documentation helps remarkably in the former and is amendable to decrease the latter by providing information about components' use in service development