IBM envisions a greater role for mobile devices, thin clients, and other embedded systems in enterprise computing. It has announced a “client model” enabling customers to deploy, manage, and provision business applications and data to client devices such as shop-floor terminals, PDAs, and cell phones, and to traditional thick clients.

The IBM client model includes middleware that runs on Linux, Unix, and Windows clients, and on embedded operating systems such as Linux and Symbian. The model is based on a Web services architecture that makes the client operating system almost irrelevant, according to IBM.

The new IBM environment includes Workplace Client Technology, Micro Edition (WCTME) software version 5.7, which extends enterprise applications to “a wide variety of devices,” according to IBM. WCTME includes device versions of IBM enterprise software, including DB2e, MQe, Service Management Framework, and Java runtime environments. According to IBM, WCTME will enable “a seamless link between devices and the enterprise.”

The IBM environment announced today also includes Lotus Workplace collaboration, email, and messaging suite, Tivoli software for centralized system administration, and WebSphere Portal software for Web-based application development.

The environment is intended to simplify development and configuration of function-rich applications on intermittently connected devices, as well as to enable remote device administration, maintenance, and software updates on them.

Market analysts at IDC last week projected a growing role for embedded clients in corporate IT. Partners Red Hat and Wind River have shown an interest in the embedded enterprise market, as has MontaVista.

 
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