As the wireless data industry finds more room to grow in the mobile enterprise market, more application developers are searching for ways to meet this new space.
In the last week, several companies announced mobile data solutions and products designed for the horizontal and enterprise market, including Cerulean Technology Inc., long a developer of applications for public safety.
The company announced a new product aimed at more horizontal markets called MobileFusion, a server platform that it said allows corporations to offer two-way access to corporate and Internet data from mobile devices. Devices such as laptops, Windows CE-based devices, personal digital assistants and certain wireless phones all can be used to access corporate data on a variety of networks.
MobileFusion is a Java-based, client/server wireless information solution using off-the-shelf Web browsers. It can operate on both private and public networks, such as Cellular Digital Packet Data, Mobitex and some circuit-switched networks.
“It’s a whole new architecture,” said Michael Bauer, director of product management at Cerulean. He said 70 percent of the company still is focused on applications for the public-safety market, such as the company’s PacketCluster Patrol. However, the enterprise market is beginning to heat up, and more application developers are looking to enter the horizontal space after years of honing their skills in vertical markets.
The challenge, Bauer said, is business has different needs than those working in the public safety and utility fields. Business applications must be able to support a wider variety of devices and networks and also carry out a wider variety of commands.
Other companies introducing new products for the space include Riverbed Technologies, a software application provider, which introduced MobileArchitect, a graphical design tool said to speed the development of Palm-OS and Windows CE mobile systems for use in enterprise deployments.
The company said the solution ensures mobile applications will remain portable across various different development tools and platforms so enterprise developers can build applications without needing to commit to a single handheld platform, such as PalmOS or Windows CE.
“For example, an organization writes an application today for the 3Com Palm III, but needs to support Windows CE in the future. MobileArchitect lets the organization regenerate their existing applications for a new development tool on the new platform,” the company said.
The solution is scheduled to begin shipping at the beginning of May, priced at $1,800.
The Vantive Corp. announced it has integrated Synchrologic’s data synchronization technology with its On-The-Go mobile computing technology, allowing users to share data between mobile devices using Vantive technology and their desktop computers. Vantive makes computing technology for sales and field-service personnel.
“With the integration of Synchrologic technology, mobile Vantive users can connect briefly to the Vantive database to automatically download and share customer data,” the company said. “Mobile users can work with data offline, reconnecting later to send back modified data, as well as receive new updates.”
Synchrologic develops mobile data synchronization software for Windows and Web-based applications. It’s flagship product is the SyncKit server.
Puma Technology Inc. previewed a server-based device connectivity platform, code-named Vulcan, which it said can provide access to and viewing of corporate data using handheld devices. The company said the product can allow users to view, use and synchronize back-office applications from mobile devices such as those based on Palm-OS and Windows CE. The platform is an extension to Puma’s Intellisync Anywhere family developed for the corporate enterprise.
