Ubiquitous Access to Personalized Services

Nowadays, the user expects not only to be able to access services and applications anywhere at anytime and on any terminal fixed or mobile; but also in the same way as at home. In order to provide ubiquitous access to personalised services this paper propose to implement the User Profile containing the user’s preferences, settings and personal data, as an XML web service which is accessible to the user at anytime anywhere and on any terminal. As an XML Web service, the User Profile will also be accessible from any application over operator’s borders, firewall and without the need of a specific middleware platform, e.g. CORBA, RMI, DCOM, etc. With such a User Profile, ubiquitous and customised access to applications and services will be a reality. The paper starts with a brief overview of the XML Web service concept. The User profile is described in details before the main focus, which is about realising the User Profile as an XML service. In the conclusion, further works and activities are proposed.