Kony has launched MobileFabric. This product unifies a mobile application development platform (MADP), mobile backend as a service (MBaaS), Application Programming Interface (API) management, and Platform as-a-Service (PaaS) infrastructures under a single, open, and standards-based mobile infrastructure platform.
Kony claims that MobileFabric shortens time spent on app development by more than 65 percent.
The firm's Burley Kawasaki points out that the demand for high-velocity app deployment will overwhelm infrastructure and operations teams that are not staffed, budgeted, or prepared to handle a rapid scale-up of mobile apps.
With the initial release, 350 MobileFabric apps were published and more than 400 MobileFabric clouds have been created in the last 90 days to support the development of cloud-based mobile applications.
"Kony MobileFabric removes the complexity and effort spent integrating multiple technologies in a typical enterprise mobile development project, with pre-built back-end services for identity, integration, orchestration, messaging, and location services. In addition, it provides offline sync capabilities, along with full platform as-a-service productivity through seamless elastic provisioning, monitoring, and analytics," said Kawasaki.
MobileFabric supports the most popular development languages with prebuilt Software Development Kits (SDK). It integrates through open RESTful APIs with mobile app development tools and frameworks that developers already know. This includes support via a set of downloadable SDKs for native iOS and Android, JavaScript, and PhoneGap development.
"This launch is interesting because it marks a shift to more loosely coupled architecture in mobile applications. As organizations start getting strategic with mobile application development, they are thinking in a somewhat more decoupled manner about their front-ends on the devices and their back-end systems," said Al Hilwa, program director for software development research at IDC.
Hilwa continues, "They are building back-ends in line with new API architectures to handle not just mobile devices but a brave new world of IoT devices that need to engage with the enterprise. More mature thinking around mobile means that API back-ends are being developed to handle many mobile and web apps, and mobile and web front-ends are being designed to compose API services from many back-end systems. It is a new strategic way of thinking about mobile architectures that will play out over the next few years."