AppForge began shipping Crossfire 5.0, a mobile and
wireless cross-application development environment designed for
Microsoft .net developers.
The technology lets developers who use Visual Basic .net write
an application once and redeploy it with minimum changes on Palm
OS, Symbian OS and the Nokia Series 60 platform devices.
"To run on Palm, a developer only needs to modify the user
interface, and that's maybe a day or two of work. All the building
tools are in Crossfire, but all the benefits of the debugger and
IDE are still there from .net," said Doug Benson, vice-president of
marketing.
With mobile devices constantly being updated and upgraded by
manufacturers, the company is also using a subscription service
model to keep developers up to date on changes to mobile hardware
platforms and operating systems.
"We have taken our run time and we are redefining it as a device
definition, similar to the way you think of a virus protection
program," said Benson.
While Crossfire promises to make the life of system integrators
and in-house corporate developers easier on the technology side,
Crossfire also offers a quasi-political solution to a perennial IT
management problem, said AppForge chief exectuive officer Gary
Warren.
"If senior managers are telling IT to use Microsoft .net, we can
extend beyond that to a more diverse environment," said Warren. "We
bridge the gap between what senior management wants and what IT
wants to use."
The existing version also includes full support for barcode
readers, scanners and RFID. It supports VB .net, and the next
version will also support Microsoft C#.
Ephraim Schwartz writes for InfoWorld
