Mobile solutions can be built in many different ways, used on many different devices, operate over many different networks, and integrate with many different back-end systems.

This paper explores the differences between smart-client and thin-client mobile architectures, examining the details of common smart-client architectures in use today, including what type of back-end systems they integrate with, the types of devices they support, how data is managed within the architecture, and development languages that can be used to build the application.