Developing m-Services; lesson learned from a developers Perspective

In English In recent years the Swedish Police Force (SPF) have encountered greater demands on
availability and 24/7 services when dealing with errands that are regarded as low priority
compared to regular police work, e.g. collecting tips from the public. One attempt to meet these
increasing demands was the development of a mobile communications platform that allowed the
public to communicate easily with the SPF using their own mobile phones by sending SMS and
MMS. The focus of this paper is on the early phases of development of this m-service, in
particular, on the specific technical issues such as interoperability and standards used by the
actors on the scene affecting the development of mobile information systems. The learning
experiences are as follows: First, mobile communication platforms have a large potential for
contributing to the field of emergency management information systems since they can be based
on open and nationally accepted standards. Second, global and national standards for sending
multimedia messages are not always truly standardized. Operators and mobile phone
manufacturers make minor alterations and interpretations of the standard and thereby some of
the benefits found in standards disappear. Third, when developing mobile information systems we
suggest and recommend that the analysis phase should be enhanced compared to traditional
system development, and it should address the interoperability between mobile phones on one
hand and operators on the other hand.