I am building a new Warehouse Management System. Like most such systems, operators will use handheld devices for wireless RF real time data collection and interchange during operations. In picking, for example, the handheld will receive instructions about what item to pick, in what quantity, and at what location; display those instructions to the operator; and allow the operator to scan/enter the item, quantity, and location to confirm that the pick has been executed
The devices used in such an operation are different from consumer-oriented devices like smart phones or PDA's. They are industrial strength pieces of equipment designed for quick information entry and exchange. They are linked using a wireless network into a tightly integrated network, along with PC's used in other functions. Before CE.NET 4.0 the interface to these devices required (usually) DOS and one of several third party COM packages (such as Wavelink). One could recently, I believe, develop COM's for these devices using a VB script language
Now with CE .NET 4.0, and Visual Studio 2003, we can create terrific applications for these devices right in native VB or C#. Further, the manufacturers of these devices (like Symbol and HHP, formerly Hand Held Products devision of Welch-Allyn), have seen the light and are moving all their new products either to the Windows CE or Product PC platform
I have not been able to figure out how to remote these devices to a business-tier application which constructs, sends, receives, and processes the instructions and responses to the handheld tier, where the handheld in effect acts simply as a device receiving and processing data on a temporary basis. Does anyone have any ideas on how to do this? Needless to say, I was disappointed to see that CE.NET does not support remoting, which would have allowed all of this to be done by calls to the business tier via proxy.
