Kony, Inc., a leading enterprise mobility company, today at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2013 announced the launch of the Kony Multi-Channel Experience Cloud, its end-to-end suite of products and services that creates a unique collaboration environment for business users, designers and developers to quickly deliver compelling multi-channel app experiences. This announcement begins a multi-phase rollout of cloud-based offerings that will enable organizations to keep pace with constantly changing mobile technology and deliver superior user-first experiences with significantly lower total cost of ownership (TCO) and faster time-to-market.
The news was unveiled at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Orlando, where more than 14,000 attendees saw first-hand details and demos of the new cloud-based suite that includes design, develop, test, deploy and manage solutions, namely Kony Visualization Cloud, Kony Development Cloud, Kony Management Cloud and Kony Cloud Foundation. In addition to this complete app development suite, the Kony Multi-Channel Experience Cloud also includes the Kony Apps Cloud, an application suite of over 33 customer and enterprise pre-built apps that are being used by over 20 million users across numerous industries.
As most enterprises adopt mobile technologies, they struggle with building a multi-channel vision and strategy with apps that both engage customers and employees and leverage existing IT investments. When taking the complexities of the entire app workflow into consideration, including design, development, deployment and management for multiple apps, the user experience is often times compromised first. This is despite the fact that end users today are ultimately demanding a focus on experience. With multiple and separate teams in place to develop, test, and maintain apps across different devices and operating systems, it is difficult for enterprises to collaborate and maintain the flexibility needed to evolve at the speed of mobile.
“When it comes to releasing mobile apps, most developers fall short of the mark that we see most five-star applications hitting,” writes Jeffrey Hammond, vice president and principal analyst and Vivian Brown, researcher, at Forrester Research, in the firm’s August report, Development Landscape: 2013. “More than half (51%) release four times a year or fewer, while roughly 13% have the capacity to release on a monthly basis if needed. In contrast, five-star development shops tend to release eight to 12 times a year.”
To address these challenges, Kony has reinvented and streamlined the software development life-cycle (SDLC) for multi-channel apps with the Kony Experience Platform, the first cloud-based platform that enables organizations to quickly and effortlessly design, develop, test, deploy, and manage apps across any digital channel from a single code base. In addition to this core SDLC functionality, the Kony Experience Platform offers a unique collaboration environment for business users, designers, and developers to work together in real-time to deliver compelling experiences that meet business demands.
“Today, the CIO imperative revolves around an organization’s ability to transform customer and employee experiences by delivering next-gen apps that work across any digital channel. This is in response to a shift we’re seeing in approaches to enterprise architecture from Systems of Record to enabling Systems of Engagement. At the same time, organizations are also grappling with siloed internal workflows that make this increasingly difficult,” said Abhay Parasnis, president and COO at Kony. “The Kony Multi-Channel Experience Cloud addresses these problems byeffectively transforming the workflow process for designers, developers, IT security, and business users, helping organizations to successfully take advantage of the business benefits and competitive differentiation mobility brings.”
“Working with Kony takes the guesswork out of mobile application development, enabling SunTrust to focus on delivering business value to our clients through engaging and visually stunning apps,” said, Jeff Dennes, senior vice president, digital channels at SunTrust Banks. “The ease of use that comes with the Kony Experience Platform will eliminate some of the cumbersome development processes, making the delivery of apps more focused on the user interface and user experience across phones, tablets and desktops.”
The Kony Multi-Channel Experience Cloud suite is comprised of:
• Kony Visualization Cloud
• Kony Development Cloud
• Kony Management Cloud
• Kony Apps Cloud
• Kony Cloud Foundation
Kony Visualization Cloud
Kony Visualization Cloud is the first and only multi-channel app experience design and collaboration solution that combines UI, UX, and WYSIWYG prototyping and integrates with development. No prior device experience or coding skills are required to deliver app designs with cloud-based development integration. Built-in sharing and collaboration further provides the ability for enterprises to get instant feedback from key stakeholders while increasing speed of delivery and process effectiveness and removing friction between designers and developers. Kony Visualization Cloud is integrated with the Kony Development Cloud, enabling developers to reuse 100 percent of the design work, dramatically reducing development time and eliminating rework.
Kony Development Cloud
Kony Development Cloud is a comprehensive set of cloud services (mBaaS), frameworks and tools for developing multi-channel HTML5, hybrid, and native apps from a single code base, enabling enterprises to focus on innovation and create next-gen multi-channel app experiences. Apps can be coded once in JavaScript and deployed to over 10,000 devices with one click, removing the burden of having to keep pace with mobile technology. With access to the most advanced design and development solutions on the market, enterprises can leverage Kony’s powerful cloud mBaaS with the freedom to use a mix-and-match approach and whatever framework or open source toolkit works best for them. Kony Development Cloud makes for end-to-end testing for UI and functionality easier at every stage of the app development cycle.
Kony Management Cloud
Kony Management Cloud allows enterprises to stay ahead of the BYOD curve with user-centric and cloud-based management, effectively creating the next generation of intelligent enterprise mobility management (EMM). Organizations can manage apps, devices, and content with this EMM suite, the least intrusive and most context-aware of its kind. Additionally, enterprises can simplify administration by using an intuitive console that allows seamless administrator functionality. With integration to the development process, Kony Management Cloud offers a complete approach to app security.
Kony Apps Cloud
Kony Apps Cloud enables organizations to leverage proven workflows and pre-built vertical and enterprise integrations to deliver ready-to-run multi-channel customer and employee apps. Additionally, enterprises can fully extend app functionality to fit unique business requirements and easily customize the app design to meet brand guidelines. Apps now align with product roadmaps, with the ability to easily incorporate future updates.
Kony Cloud Foundation
Kony Cloud Foundation, built on Amazon Web Services (AWS), provides comprehensive backend infrastructure that allows users to focus on creating apps rather than hosting and managing them. Kony Cloud Foundation offers elastic, scalable, pay-as-you-go capacity in the cloud and flexible deployment, including public cloud, hybrid hosting and on-premises options. The Kony Cloud Foundation allows administrators to easily provision cloud instances, manage users and accounts, analyze usage reporting and monitor system performance.
Availability
Available now, Kony is offering a free trial of its cloud suite of products via a tiered release program. Users who sign up this week will get exclusive access to all the great features and cloud services that let you develop, design, and integrate multi-channel applications from a single code base. Start building amazing apps here: www.kony.com.
