The following components comprise a complete end-to-end solution for mobile computing applications:

Hardware:

• Mobile computing device - be it, a notebook, hand-held computer, pen computer, PDA, PalmOS compatible PDA, Symbian EPOC device, Windows CE/Pocket PC device, or a two-way interactive pager.
• A suitably-configured wire line or wireless WAN modem, wireless LAN adapter.
• A Web Server with wireless support, WAP gateway, a Communications Server and/or MCSS (Mobile communications server switch) - this device provides communications functionality to allow the handheld device to communicate with the Internet or Intranet infrastructure.
• An application or database server (the hardware piece) with application logic and business application database - tier 2 server.
• Optionally, a large enterprise application server in the form of a Unix super server, AS/400 server or IBM's OS/390 mainframe - the tier 2 server acts an intermediary between the backend and the front-end mobile device.

Software:

• Mobile client OS-type software that resides in the mobile device - it may be Windows98/2000/NT, PalmOS, Win CE (or Pocket PC), EPOC, a specialized OS like Blackberry, or a Web browser.
• Mobile application user interface with application logic in a handheld PDA, smartphone, Palm or a Wintel notebook. In the Internet world, it is often under the control of a browser or micro browser.
• Application server and/or database server software.
• Back-end legacy application software on large Unix servers (from vendors such as Sun, IBM, and HP), IBM AS/400,or IBM S/390 mainframes.
• Application middleware (a piece of software that communicates with backend legacy systems and web-based application servers). IBM's Websphere is one such example.
• Wireless middleware that links multiple wireless networks to application servers.

Network:

A wireless network - this may be either a private network that police agencies and emergency health services use or a public shared network that is provided by network providers, such as Motient, Cingular (formerly Bell South Wireless Data), Verizon, Sprint, Metricom, Nextel, Bell Mobility (Canada) , Roger's AT&T (Canada), BT in UK, NTT DoCoMo (Japan), etc.

While wireless network provides true mobility, you may utilize a wireline network for those mobile users who need occasion connection from hotels, motels or airport lounges of airline's regular patrons. Some of these airports are now offering wireless LAN connectivity to wire line backend networks.