Blackberry RAD (Rapid Application Deployment) is a method of connecting to a web service and making use of the facilities offered. If all you want is for a user to visit your website, then RAD and all the facilities it offers may not be for you; there are simple means of accomplishing this. Think of RAD as the means by which you can interface the runtime environment (operating system) of your Blackberry smartphones with the back-end web services, making the application available to the phone user.
So how does all this work? Well, you’ll need an Internet-based web service to communicate with your Blackberry smartphone. This will have been created using Web Services for Java (from Sun Micro systems) or Web Services for .NET (from Microsoft). Once you have created the web service, your Blackberry needs a means to communicate with the service and exchange information for the application to actually work.
This is where RAD’s runtime environment, called the “BlackBerry® Mobile Data System (BlackBerry® MDS) runtime”, comes into play. This is installed on the smartphone either locally by the user, OTA (Over The Air), or by a company administrator. Once you have this installed on the Blackberry, you can run the application developed for the smartphone called the Blackberry MDS Application to complete the loop and start communicating with your web service.
You could have any number of Blackberry MDS applications, depending on what web services you have designed and want to exchange information with. These applications would have been created using the standalone BlackBerry MDS Studio tool or the BlackBerry Plug-in for Microsoft Visual Studio. Both tools offer advanced GUIs (graphical user interfaces) that allow fast and efficient design of your application, to give the user the best possible result.
Blackberry RAD (Rapid Application Deployment) gives the developer the best of both worlds: it is simple and therefore quick to learn, but also powerful in providing the means to produce effective applications. Combine the ability to communicate with both web services developed under Web Services for Java and Web Services for .NET and you have real flexibility.
Blackberry addicts quickly become familiar with the new concept and enjoy the added versatility of using RAD to promote better communication for both business and private use, achieving faster and more targeted levels of communication and resulting in better productivity, which generates higher and faster profits with prolific use. .