A Software Architecture for Provision of Context-Aware Web-based m-Commerce Applications

Mobile commerce is gaining significant importance in the recent years as an alternative option of e-commerce for the moving user. The mobile applications through which m-commerce takes place operate in highly dynamic environments with diverse characteristics and under varying conditions. The characteristics and conditions of these environments -- called context -- should be exploited in order to provide adaptive services, services that offer a suitable user experience and deliver innovative and enhanced capabilities that will facilitate user interaction, attract new customers and maintain existing ones. The goal of adaptivity is realized through the adaptation of user interface, functionality and content of applications using the context information. Therefore, context-awareness constitutes an essential aspect -- almost a requirement -- of mobile services. In order to realize context-aware services, there is a necessity to capture the context information from its sources, process and distribute it to the software components that will use it. In this paper, we propose a software architecture for context information management suitable for m-commerce applications. We describe the functionality and characteristics of its components, as well as the interaction among these different components.