Supporting handheld collaboration through COMAL

Handheld computers represent one of the fastest growing segments of the computer industry today. As this happens, they become a natural medium for collaboration. Besides storing much of the user's personal data, they are always at hand, in sharp contrast with desktop computers. However, much work remains to be done for handheld computers to become the platform of choice for computer-mediated collaboration. First, we must determine the role that these devices should play in a collaboration architecture that includes not only server and desktop computers, but also the growing number of computers placed around our living environments. Second, tools need to be built to facilitate the development of handheld collaborative applications. The paper addresses these two issues, describing use scenarios for handheld collaboration and presenting COMAL, a framework for the development of handheld collaborative applications. The use of this framework is illustrated with the development of a sample application.