Odyssey Software and AppForge, Inc. today delivered ViaXML(TM) for Palm OS(R) with support for AppForge(TM), enabling Microsoft(R) Visual Basic(R) developers to build applications that directly access enterprise data from Palm Powered(TM) handheld computers via open standard XML-based mobile web services technology.
IT Professionals have been asked to deliver on the promise of wireless and mobility - improved business processes that enhance productivity and decision-making through better access to enterprise information. Mobile application developers face a challenge - finding products available to enable these powerful mobile enterprise applications to be built, distributed, and managed for the direct business benefit that enterprises demand. Together Odyssey Software and AppForge deliver the ideal application development environment and enterprise data access infrastructure required to quickly and effectively deliver on that promise: line of business mobile applications with solid return on investment.
The combined expertise of AppForge and Odyssey Software avoids the pitfalls of indirect access to enterprise data, and delivers architectural choice to millions of experienced Visual Basic developers, so that technology does not dictate how a mobile application must be built, or how mobile workers should work. There are many mobile and wireless application architectures in the market, which may be broadly classified as: proprietary platforms for content trans-coding; thin client; and declarative synchronization - which have not met the need. Rich client applications - which can operate in both fully connected and occasionally connected scenarios - may be built using ViaXML with AppForge, allowing developers to choose the right approach, even blending and designing new architecture options such as application-controlled synchronization to optimize the mobile experience. These applications can operate over virtually any IP-based network, including Wireless LAN, CDPD, GSM, Palm.Net(R), and GPRS Wireless WAN, as well as direct connection - so that workers can maximize their productivity and quality of decision-making while mobile.
"The combination of the AppForge development environment with ViaXML enterprise data access infrastructure has the potential to transform the way developers build mobile enterprise applications for the Palm OS platform", said Todd Bradley, executive vice president and chief operating officer for Palm, Inc. "There are over five million Visual Basic developers who can now transform existing corporate web infrastructure into mobile application servers that deliver immediate highly scalable interactive access to enterprise knowledge from Palm Powered handheld computers. Interfaces can now easily happen with data managed by SQL Server, Oracle, Sybase, and DB/2 and business logic managed by corporate applications such as SAP/R3, Siebel, Baan, and PeopleSoft."
"The combination of ViaXML with the AppForge development environment improves significantly the ability of developers to create mobile enterprise applications, said Doug Armstrong, chief executive officer at AppForge. Odyssey Software pioneered direct enterprise data access to mobile PDA devices in 1998, and is now the first to deliver mobile web services technology to the market so that Visual Basic developers can immediately build mobile applications for a broad range of markets - the market is clamoring for a strong solution to the Palm OS enterprise integration question and Odyssey Software has delivered a most effective solution."
"AppForge Inc. has transformed the Palm Developer community, and using ViaXML from within AppForge allows Visual Basic developers to immediately become Palm OS platform enterprise developers - without hosting proprietary software servers that demand you open your firewall for anything more than a web server," said Mark Gentile, president and CEO of Odyssey Software. "With ViaXML we have embraced open Internet standards and leverage investments that companies have made in Internet architectures and infrastructure, while revolutionizing the ways in which mobile and wireless technologies can be effectively used."
AppForge and ViaXML for the Palm OS platform, Pocket PC, and Windows CE are available immediately. Free thirty-day evaluation licenses for ViaXML and AppForge are available from http://www.odysseysoftware.com/ or www.appforge.com and further information - as well as deployment licenses - is available from info@odysseysoftware.com and info@appforge.com
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