Mapserver Web service questions

[ANDY CANFIELD]

To anyone who may know,
        Can Mapserver be used like a web service?
Here is my situation. I have a small device that I want to show maps on.
There are two ways I can do this as the device has a browser I can make a
small web page for it, or to give it more functionality I can write an
embeded app that displays maps from a web service.

So what I need to know is can Mapserver be used like a web service or do I
need to write a web service that acts as the interface to Mapserver?

I am using Mapserver for Windows and currently it’s set up with php
Mapscript for my web maps.
If I can use Mapserver as a service can I use the same one I’m running php
Mapscript against?

If not and I write a service is it safe to target the same Mapserver as php
is using via it’s Mapscript interface?

If it helps any the device sending the requests will be a Nextel Blackberry.
The language of the app sitting on the device will be J2ME ( Java Micro
Edition ). The service itself if I have to write one will be in C++.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Andy

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