Server-Supported Internationalization of Wireless Java Applications

Mobile devices, more so than desktop computers, are used throughout the world. By internationalizing and localizing its content, a mobile application can provide the best experience for the widest possible audience. This paper describes how to internationalize and localize Java technologybased wireless enterprise applications. Although the constraints of mobile devices make internationalization challenging, particularly on the client side, application developers can use the server side of the mobile client/server architecture to support the internationalization effort. This paper helps developers apportion handling internationalization work between the client and the server. This paper illustrates its design guidelines using the Java Smart Ticket sample application, which is available through the Java BluePrints Web site at http://java.sun.com/blueprints/. This sample application is an example mobile commerce application using a movie ticketing scenario. Its design principles can be applied to other mobile services based on Java technology. Note that this paper is one of several Java BluePrints for Wireless papers. It limits itself to the issues of server-supported internationalization of wireless clients and applications and leaves the basics of designing Java wireless enterprise