Link

A. Spriestersbach SAP AG
H. Vogler SAP Labs
F. Lehmann TU-Dresden
T. Ziegert TU-Dresden

International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking archive
Proceedings of the 1st international workshop on Mobile commerce table of contents
Rome, Italy
Pages: 55 - 59
Year of Publication: 2001
ISBN:1-58113-376-6

Abstract:
The integration of context information (especially location information) into mobile applications and services is one of the most crucial requirements to achieve a broader usability and hence acceptance of these. So far location information is used for typical business-to-consumer applications such as mobile-MapQuest or ATM-finder. The application of location awareness in typical enterprise or business applications, such as logistics or Customer Relationship Management (CRM), is currently addressed rather poor.

In this paper we discuss the enhancement of mobile enterprise applications by context information. Starting from a customer demand and for a mobile sales force scenario, our objective was the improvement of the usability of mobile enterprise applications by introducing context information to these.

My Discussion:
The paper makes the process they went through seem straightforward. Create a IR based location beacon for a shop, and then the shopper's handheld picks up a location ID and gets a customized form for that shop from the back-end. Add to that the knowledge of who the shopper is, and the user barely has to enter anything to make a purchase from the form. What I find interesting is how a 2001 paper already reads as old because they couldn't find the handhels they liked -- now Symbian phones with GPRS connections are all over the place.
The paper has a short but good discussion about how location is a subset of context, and useful refernces to context work at the time.