Verivo Software yesterday announced Akula, a new enterprise-targeted mobile application platform that the company said simplifies the development, security and control of applications.
Akula marks the complete reinvention of Verivo’s mobility platform to meet the new market requirements for this type of platform, explained Steve Levy, CEO of Verivo. He noted that the product is oriented around making not just any application easier to build, manage and secure, but also targets enterprise applications—those that are transactional in nature and heavily integrated.
“In 2009, mobility was a nice technology, with limited utility for enterprises,” he said. “In 2011, things started to change, and technology became less of a niche with the bulk distribution of tablets. They had a great calendar and great e-mail, but people were asking how it’s any better than a browser. Then companies started hiring iOS developers, and we saw the market change.
“Our first product insulated people from technology,” Levy continued. “Now, that’s not necessary. And then HTML5 came along as a viable alternative for ‘write once, run anywhere,’ but our product was proprietary, so we reinvented our entire technology platform.”
Levy went on to say that there are four key aspects that make enterprise applications for mobile hard to build: the ability to work offline, outside of the coverage area; enabling IT operations teams to control the apps, such as changing security and performance settings mid-data sync; securing the data once it’s on the device; and gaining the maximum benefit from the application, whether it’s natively written or a Web application, or some kind of hybrid development.
The plumbing in the new solution resides in Akula Server, which businesses can use to identify on the server which data and services it wants to make available to applications, Levy said. The server can tie into identity systems such as Active Directory, and also provides client SDKs for the most popular programming languages, so “Developers can work effectively without worrying about integrations on the back end,” he said. “People want to integrate with legacy systems behind the firewall and want an on-premise solution. All controls for managing the server are built into the server-management tool.”
Akula also integrates with Tivoli and other infrastructure-administration tools, Levy added.
To go along with the changes in the technology, Verivo also is changing its licensing model. The company is making Akula available at no cost for 30 days, offering users full access to Verivo support and DevCenter, Levy explained.
