Worklight’s software speeds up the delivery of employee and consumer to new and existing mobile apps over multiple devices and facilitates secure connections with the company’s information-technology systems, Armonk, New York-based IBM said today in a statement.
IBM touted its software to connect mobile apps, secure them and manage devices. With this acquisition, IBM’s mobile offerings will cover mobile application development, integration, security and management. With this addition, IBM is looking to be a major player along with numerous other companies in the mobile sphere.
“Our clients are under increased pressure to meet the increasing demands of a workforce and customer base that now treat mobility as mission critical to their business,” said Marie Wieck, general manager, IBM application and infrastructure middleware. With the acquisition of Worklight, IBM is now fully geared-up to help clients become smarter mobile enterprises reaching new markets.
Interestingly, Worklight supports consumer and employee-facing applications in a broad range of industries, including financial services, retail and healthcare. For instance, a bank can create a single application that offers features to facilitate its customers to securely connect to their account, pay bills and manage their investments, regardless of the device they are using. Similarly, a hospital could use Worklight technology to extend its existing IT system to allow direct input of health history, allergies, and prescriptions by a patient using a tablet.
Moreover, the Worklight platform is appropriate for developing mobile applications for both consumers and enterprises, as well as targeted toward various industry verticals, IBM said. It includes SDKs (software development kits) for iOS, Android, Blackberry and Windows mobile devices, and “enables rich, cross-platform apps without requiring code translation, proprietary interpreters or unpopular programming languages,” according to Worklight’s site.
However, adapting the software, an organization can write single mobile applications to operate across any device including Apple Inc.’s iPhone, Research In Motion Ltd. RIMM’s BlackBerry and devices using Google Inc.’s Android operating system. That saves time and money while suitably manages employee access and creating more consistent consumer applications, said Bob Sutor, vice president of IBM Mobile Platform in a statement.
“The major difference here is the connectivity between businesses to employees, so they can increase their productivity and transform the way they work,” said Wieck. It also helps companies “reach their partners and their customers, who are increasingly using this for their own productivity as well.”
Founded in 2006 by Chief Executive Officer Shahar Kaminitz, Worklight is headquartered in New York, with research and development in Israel, according to its Website. Its technologies include Worklight Studio, an Eclipse-based IDE (integrated development environment) and Worklight Server, described on the company’s website as a “secure and scalable gateway between applications, external services, and the enterprise backend infrastructure.”
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the Worklight acquisition apparently illustrates that IBM is fervently chasing the mobile space from development, management, security and commerce. Worklight makes mobile development, middleware and management tools. Worklight will be folded into IBM’s software unit.