Mobility enterprise heralds future of technology

•  WSO2 Mobile launched to solve and overcome challenges of mobility

By Rashika Fazali

We have come to an age where the corporate world has moved swiftly from desktop based enterprise systems to mobile based enterprise solutions. Companies such as WSO2 are now leaning increasingly towards the new trend as they see a prosperous future in the world of mobile technology.

Supporting this need, the open source application development company recently announced their move to launch a fully-owned subsidiary mobile enterprise, WSO2 Mobile.

Understanding that there is a huge need in the IT world for mobility and ‘mobileware’, WSO2 Chairman and CEO Sanjiva Weerawarana along with Microimage and Microimage Mobile Media founder Harsha Purasinghe created this venture to solve the many challenges in the mobile world.

Starting up WSO2 Mobile

Purasinghe, who will also serve as the Founder and the CEO of WSO2 Mobile, addressed the need for such an enterprise in this fast moving IT world: “When we started building applications for the enterprise side, we saw a whole heap of challenges there and the integration required to build across multiple platforms – meaning how to provide the same experience with a public app to the enterprise world.”

The challenge was one reason, however Weerawarana addressed another: “To me since mobility is such an important and large space, we didn’t want to just say we are going to hire a bunch of people and do it. Instead, we wanted to do it as a proper focused effort so that there will be leadership, vision and so forth.”

He further added that through the WSO2 Mobile enterprise, the company’s plan is to offer it as an open source solution, making it simpler for the client to adopt. Weerawarana stated: “It’s a large plan, not a small vision. We are planning to takeover the market. It’ll take sometime, but we will get there. There is a saying that you have to aim for the stars if you want to land on the moon.”

Why WSO2?

As the founder of WSO2 Mobile, Purasinghe revealed that the company has an impressive middleware stack: “WSO2 has the entire stack and it even has an extension for developing web applications as well, which is really cool. In fact even with the stuff that we are building, we are developing them all using their web application tools like Jaggery which we are going to write in.”

He also noted that this kind of venture also requires significant effort and financial resources which can be well supported by WSO2, as they have recently received a US$ 10 million funding from three corporate giants; Toba Capital, Cisco and Intel Capital.

Application building

WSO2 Mobile will initially focus on building two blocks; mobile development management (MDM) and mobile enterprise application platform (MEAP) with a third one on mind, mobile backend as a service (MBaaS).

MDM

As the future for mobility is evolving very fast, which will eventually see more people acquiring smart phones, this will enable customers, employees and suppliers to bring in their own devices which will give them the ability to access both the corporate network and the required corporate data.

Purasinghe added that with the MDM they aim to solve any bring-your-own-device (BYOD) problems. This area will basically deal with plugging into the network securely, managing it, wiping sensitive corporate data from a lost iPad or a tablet, etc.

MEAP

The next challenge for WSO2 Mobile is in application development. Purasinghe noted that they will look into ways of writing an application across a platform and integrating it into various backend systems, with full Application Programming Interface (API) access granted to developers: “It’s API management, so you expose APIs. It’s tightly integrated to a development tool, so you can quickly cut an application and provision across the platform,” stated Purasinghe.

Since enterprise development is rapidly evolving, WSO2 has plans to set up an application factory product which will feature all sorts of role-based applications for the corporate world. He added: “It’s basically lots of components tied together to make mobile application development provisioning much easier in today’s context.”

Hence the word ‘Mobileware’ becomes a part of the tagline. “It is a whole heap of mobileware, if you look at mobile software components which will basically solve all these challenges,” stated Purasinghe.

MBaaS

Here, the company’s mobile subsidiary will look at how they can provide ways to link their application to backend cloud storage. He noted that this will provide solutions by providing an unified set of APIs and software development kits (SDKs) for mobile developers to use cloud-based storage in all social media platforms, thus providing features such as push notifications and also allow easy integration. In this case, MBaaS bridges the gap between many APIs and various cloud-based backend services.

Working with platforms

With Android dominating nearly 70% of the market share and Apple with 20%, Purasinghe stated that their main priority will be working on both iOS and Android platforms.

Although Blackberry and Windows Mobile dominate only a small market share, WSO2 Mobile will also work on supporting these platforms. He asserted that there is potential for the new BlackBerry device, Z10 to enter into the market very strongly, especially in places like Jakarta, Indonesia which is probably the BlackBerry capital of the world.

Security

Under security, WSO2 Mobile will address three security aspects; handset security, application security and platform security. Many companies are focusing solely on improving their security; although Purasinghe believes that there are limits to the amount of security you can provide for an application or a device.

Speaking on hacking, he added: “It’s going to be there as long as IT exists. It is not going to disappear. If somebody asks me if everything is secure? I will say that nothing is secure.”

Nevertheless, the mobile subsidiary will focus on tightening applications security as much as possible. Weerawarana stated: “The weakest link in security is the human being.”

Competing with the rest

Weerawarana provided three ways on how the new mobile subsidiary will compete with other mobile enterprises: “First, we build a better product. Second, we give it away for free. Third, we build it on top of the WSO2 brand.”

In terms of solving problems, he stated: “Our solution is to download it, run it and in just a couple of hours, your mobile device is under the management of your enterprise.”

Already, many clients have reached out to Purasinghe to sign up for their mobile enterprise. He said: “The product is not even ready and one company wants to market it in Sri Lanka already. So that is the current status.”

Although they will launch their products and software in the Sri Lankan market, their main focus is on reaching out to the global marketplace such as the US.

Pix by Sameera Wijesinghe