The goal of the SMS project is to create innovative tools enabling a new class of services, addressing the specific needs of mobile users and enabling individuals and small businesses to become service providers. These services are called Simple Mobile Services (SMS). SMS have to be simple to find, simple to use, simple to trust and simple to set up; these are the design goals for SMS. SMS will provide technology and operator-independent end-to-end connectivity and will target specific locations visited by specific classes of mobile user with specific needs. The overarching concept driving SMS is simplicity.
- SMS will be simple to find: precise targeting of services to specific users and locations will drastically reduce the burden of locating and choosing between services.
- They will be easy to use: SMS will be terminal and network independent; service design and deployment will be based on a platform independent model; authentication and configuration will be automatic; user interfaces and content will adapt automatically to the characteristics of the terminal; services will maintain the same basic logic as users move between environments and networks.
- They will be easy to set-up: the tools used for service authoring will be no more complex than current Web authoring tools; adaptation to user context and policies will take place at run time. SMS are a sub-class in the broader family of context-sensitive services - a key element in the IST vision of “ubiquitous”, “pervasive” computing. The key technologies required for SMS are already in place. The key obstacle to service deployment is not technology but the lack of standards and standards-based tools – and more important still – the absence of the millions of small providers who have driven the Internet explosion. It is these obstacles that we address in the SMS proposal.
