425ITM1C

The evolution of technology in the fields of handheld devices like cellular phones, personal digi- tal assistants (PDA) and smart-phones and in the field of wireless communications increased the development of mobile-wireless information systems, which can be used ubiquitously. This paper discusses if Computer hardware is no longer a major barrier to wide use of wireless information systems.

Mobile-wireless information systems can create benefits for organizations; such as productivity enhancement, processes and procedures flexibility, customer services improvement and informa- tion accuracy for decision makers, which together emphasize competitive strategy, lower opera- tion costs, and improved processes (Lau, 2006; Lee, 2003; Lovell, 1995). But, on the other hand, they face new kinds of problems: narrow bands, small devices, tiny screens and diversity of users and devices. These problems threaten the quality of such systems (Terho, 2002), including the usability quality characteristic, which is one of the characteristics that compose the multi- dimension concept of information systems' quality.

Schiller (2000) describes two mobility dimensions: user mobility which allows connection to the system from different geographical sites and device mobility which enables mobility of both user and system. This research focuses on mobile-wireless information systems, allowing the users to be connected any time at any place, using handheld devices such as PDAs or cellular phones con- nected via a wireless network. There are two classifications of mobile-wireless applications: horizontal and vertical (Stafford & Gillenson, 2003). Horizontal applications are general, adaptable to a wide range of users and or- ganizations, e.g.: e-mail, browsers, and file transfer applications. Vertical applications are specific to a type of users or organizations, for example: financial applications, such as money transfer, stock exchange and information inquiry; marketing and advertising applications according to the actual user position, i.e., pushing coupons to stores and information about sales nearby; emer- gency applications to check real-time ...