3.1 Do you support M-Business Client wirelessly on the Palm VII?

No. The Palm VII's wireless modem does not use normal TCP/IP. They use a different, semiproprietary paging network instead (PQA, Web-clipping), which M-Business Client does not support. You can, however, still use the Palm VII in normal cradle-synchronization mode.

3.2 Who is connecting to M-Business Client wirelessly?

Primarily, users who have wireless modems for their mobile devices or connect through a wi-fi network or Bluetooth connection. People with those connections can browse an M-Business channel or the open Internet using wirelessly. If you have a phone with an IR port, it is also possible to use the IR port to connect your mobile device and your phone to use your phone as a makeshift modem.

3.3 What is the breakdown between online and offline users?

The large majority of M-Business Anywhere users are offline users. That is, they are using PDAs without a modem attached. (Or they turn on their modem, synchronize their channels, and then disconnect their modem and read the cached pages.) While you should design primarily for this group, you should still keep M-Business Anywhere online wireless users in mind, as they become a more substantial portion of our user base as time goes on.

Even if you are developing a specific application, for which you expect all your users to have wireless connections, remember that those connections will at times be unavailable for a variety of reasons. So be sure that your all-wireless application behaves nicely when users find themselves offline. The key issue to deal with to make your wireless application work smoothly offline is form submissions. For more information on handling offline form submissions, see Managing Channel Form Submissions.

3.4 What is the difference between viewing a page in offline mode and viewing a page wirelessly?

When you synchronize your M-Business channels, whether through your desktop or through your wireless modem, your M-Business Sync Server will still go out and grab all the pages it can, up to its channel size and link depth limit.

The difference comes when you request a page that is not available on the device—generally, this is the result of a form submission, but it could also be a link that is past the channel's current link depth. If you are in offline mode, you either get a Your information will be submitted next time you sync, or a This page is not yet available on the device message. If you are in online mode, your M-Business Sync Server will go out on the Web and attempt to retrieve the appropriate page in real time.

Generally, you will find that wireless channels have a link depth of 0 or 1, primarily consisting of a search page where users can search for the map / phone number / CD / restaurant they are interested in.

3.5 I am designing a channel that is primarily intended for offline users. Is there anything I should consider for online mode?

Keep in mind that the submitNoResponse() function will return the results of a form action in online mode, so you want any resulting page to be somewhat user-friendly. See Managing Channel Form Submissions. Other than that, your channel should work the same.

3.6 So, what strategy should I employ for designing wireless channels?

Most people who intentionally set out to create a wireless-only channel prefer to create one that is separate from their offline channel, or at least has wireless and offline functionality clearly demarcated.

For online wireless users, you can be freer with your interactivity. You can have the entire contents of your site available, with a search function so users can find the products they are interested in. And the entire channel does not need to be downloaded at once.

For offline users, you generally need to upload all of your site's content at once. This involves incorporating more personalization and customized content so you can guess ahead of time what content they will be interested in and placing it on the device.

As a general rule, offline M-Business channels work well if you are viewing them on an online device. But not vice versa.