M-computing for real-time negotiation support

Mobile computing (or m-computing) technologies have recently made sufficient progress making it possible to seamlessly integrate communications and data processing in m-commerce applications. Using telemedicine as an illustration of m-commerce, we propose a system analysis and design method to formulate communications, knowledge management and transaction processing requirements for each of the business processes in a mobile application workflow. We also discuss various technological supports to implement these requirements. We advocate the use and design of process-oriented software agents to support a highly distributed and loosely-coupled federation of wireless and legacy information systems to support decision, bargaining and negotiation in a real-time environment.