AppForge, Inc., a leader in mobile application technology, today announced the latest version of its award- winning and patented mobile application platform, Crossfire 6.0. The technology in Crossfire 6.0 marks the first time Visual Studio(R) developers can easily create comprehensive on-device mobile applications for the millions of BlackBerry and Palm Treo mobile devices in the market today.
"The demand for Crossfire 6.0 is stronger than for any product we have ever developed," says Gary P. Warren, president and CEO, AppForge. "Our customers have been looking for a simple way to build and deploy data-centric, rich applications on BlackBerry and Treo devices. AppForge Crossfire 6.0 provides this solution and delivers the Microsoft Visual Studio developer base to the millions of BlackBerry and Palm Treo users worldwide."
Significant new product features found in Crossfire 6.0 include:
- Translation of Visual Basic .NET and C# into native J2ME applications
for BlackBerry devices within Microsoft Visual Studio
- A BlackBerry user interface within the Visual Studio.NET IDE, allowing
developers to visually design, implement and debug applications as they
will appear on BlackBerry devices
- BlackBerry Enterprise Server(TM) compatibility, enabling Crossfire
developed applications to be centrally managed and deployed in a secure
manner
- Support for the entire Palm Treo smartphone product family, including
the Palm Treo 700w device with Microsoft Windows(R) Mobile, and Palm
powered Treo 600 and 650 devices
- Debug applications directly on the desktop using Visual Studio
debugging tools
- Enhanced performance and development support for Symbian(TM), Nokia and
Palm
According to recent research from Evans Data Corporation, more than 61 percent of PDA and mobile software developers are currently building customer- facing mobile applications for use outside of their company -- with an overwhelming majority using Microsoft-centric programming tools for development. Many of the key product enhancements found in Crossfire 6.0 are meant to make data services delivery and user experience on mobile devices easier and more realistic for customers with large mobile deployments.
"Our customers have told us that delivering data services over a mobile Web browser is not acceptable for them -- it just doesn't work," says Chris Tyburski, chief technology officer, AppForge. "Crossfire 6.0 provides businesses with a more sensible solution by enabling organizations to build data-enabled rich clients across more than 500 device and OS combinations; without having to worry about competing computing environments, user experience or technology turnover. Crossfire 6.0 will help organizations move mobile development projects into the mass-deployment phase."