Developers have a new option for extending Lotus Domino applications to mobile devices thanks to a new version of iAnywhere Solutions Inc.’s Pylon Application Server released on Monday.
Version 6.0 of the software makes it relatively easy for Domino developers to take an application created for desktop PCs and deploy it to a handheld device such as a personal digital assistant (PDA) or a smart phone, said Diana Ungersma, an iAnywhere senior product manager.
“Basically, we take an existing Lotus Domino application and make a mobile version from it. Pylon Application Server takes the data and the application logic out of Domino and creates the mobile version,” she said.
In some cases, developers will have to do some additional coding to create the mobile application, but often it won’t be necessary, she said.
The new capabilities come largely from M-Business Anywhere, a client/server platform for deploying Web-based applications that iAnywhere acquired last year when it bought AvantGo. iAnywhere effectively has embedded M-Business Anywhere in Pylon Application Server Version 6.0 at no extra charge, Ungersma said.
The Pylon upgrade also adds new device management capabilities, as well as support for JavaScript, which allows business logic to be executed on clients, she said. For example, JavaScript could be used to create an alert when a salesman enters data in the wrong field on his PDA, prompting him to fix the mistake, Ungersma said.
Pylon Application Server 6.0 is available now for US$149 per seat, the same price as its predecessor. It works with most PDAs and smart phones based on PalmSource Inc.’s Palm OS and the various iterations of Microsoft Corp.’s Pocket PC software, she said.
Separately Monday, iAnywhere said it has completed its recently announced acquisitions of XcelleNet Inc., which makes software for managing devices used by mobile workers, and Dejima Inc., which developed a speech interface technology.
It also announced that version 2.1 of its Mobile Sales software has been validated by Siebel Systems Inc. to work with Siebel 7, the latest version of that company’s customer relationship management suite.
iAnywhere is a subsidiary of database vendor Sybase Inc., in Dublin, California.
