appcelerator

Available since just more than a month ago and still only in a testing mode, the Google+ social network has already convinced some developers that it will eventually catch up with rival Facebook.

The new quarterly survey of mobile application developers by Web development tool maker by Appcelerator and market research firm IDC found that two-thirds of the 1,621 respondents to the question "Can Google+ catch up to Facebook?" replied yes. The reason: more than 68 percent of the respondents believe Google's other assets--search, YouTube, and maps, among others--trump Facebook's social graph lead.

Of course, … Read more

Google lost some ground in its effort to catch Apple's lead in the effort to attract mobile developer interest, but other rivals aren't even close, survey data released today show.

So concludes the latest quarterly survey by Appcelerator, released today. The company, along with analyst firm IDC, polled 2,760 developers in mid-April who are using Appcelerator's Titanium cross-platform development software.

"Interest in Android has recently plateaued as concerns around fragmentation and disappointing results from early tablet sales have caused developers to pull back from their previous steadily increasing enthusiasm for Google's mobile operating system,&… Read more

The growing wave of tablets is spurring mobile app developers to put the devices at the top of their priority lists, according to a new survey.

An IDC and Appcelerator survey of app developers (PDF) found that interest in Android tablets shot up 12 points over the past three months with 74 percent "very interested" in developing for the Google OS-based devices.

But the iPad is still king, with 87 percent of those polled "very interested" in developing for Apple's tablet. Interest in Research In Motion's upcoming BlackBerry Playbook nearly doubled to 28 percent. … Read more

App developers praise Apple's iOS for its strong market share and revenue stream, but a huge number see Android as the platform with the most diverse potential over the long haul.

Among the more than 2,000 developers surveyed this past month by IDC and Appcelerator, 72 percent said Android is best positioned to power a larger and greater variety of devices in the future, compared with 25 percent who said the same about Apple. As a result, 59 percent of the app developers favor Android's long-term outlook versus 35 percent for iOS, according to the "Appcelerator … Read more

Application developers see Apple's iOS as the top mobile platform for now but have high expectations for Google's Android, according to a survey released Wednesday.

The "Q2 Mobile Developer Survey" (PDF) was conducted by Appcelerator, which makes the Titantium platform for developing mobile and desktop apps. The survey gauged the opinions of mobile app developers on the six major platforms: Apple's iOS, Google's Android, Palm's (now Hewlett-Packard's) WebOS, Microsoft's Phone 7, Nokia's Symbian/Meego, and RIM's BlackBerry.

Among the 2,733 developers surveyed in mid-June, Apple and Android were … Read more

Many media and technology pundits are convinced that the impending release of the Apple iPad will herald a change in the way we consume computing resources.

And while the iPad may usher in a new way to interact with computing devices, it's far from a perfect device. Perhaps it's the promise of what a device of this type can offer that's the message, rather than the actuality of what the initial iPad will deliver.

In fact, according to a new survey by development tools maker Appcelerator, developer interest actually waned during the past three months, primarily due … Read more

I interviewed Appcelerator's founders last week to discuss their latest product release and their contest to try to spur community development.

We hit on a number of topics, including rich Internet applications, running a start-up, and how to empower a developer community.

A couple of interesting notes about the contest: the community decides who wins and entrants have to roll into Appcelerator's Twitter stream (@appcelerator) in order to participate. I think this is a very cool idea that I expect to become commonplace as marketers start to understand social media.

Appcelerator, founded in 2006, uses an open-source platform … Read more

Red Hat is partnering with Google to build on Google's Web Toolkit (GWT), technology that enables users to cross-compile and optimize Java code as JavaScript for use in different browsers.

But what does this mean? Why should anyone care?

Rich Sharples, director of Product Management at Red Hat, suggests that GWT was the shortest route to cutting through the clutter of competing RIA solutions like Appcelerator, a startup that employs some JBoss veterans and which just raised $4.1 million in venture capital and wants to displace Adobe AIR and other Rich Internet Application (RIA) platforms...like GWT:

The world doesn't need another Java framework for developing rich AJAX apps. so we've decided to go with what we think is a real leader - Google Web Toolkit.

But Red Hat's work with GWT isn't about competitors, as Sharples told me in a follow-up email. It's about customers and developers, and offers significant insight to Red Hat's development strategy:

If there is a grand plan, it's to deliver what developers and customers actually want. We're a demand-driven business - if we don't give customers that they want then we face the prospect of having to compete with some much larger and much more powerful competitors on [their] terms [, not the customers'].

I think that JBoss/Red Hat represents a maturity with respect to how it views technology that I haven't seen anywhere else....[T]he reason we can punch way above our weight is because we've accepted that we don't have to be the sole source of innovation for everything we ship: we're willing to forego some control for the advantage of being able to deliver a technology stack composed of the best, most popular components.

That's practical because we've spent the last 3 years building a very flexible and adaptable server-side platform (JBoss AS 5.0.0) - the same run-time can be use to deploy stateless GWT apps., Spring apps., Ruby apps. or BPEL or Java EE / Seam apps. or whatever else comes along. We won't inflict a different run-time on customers just because they choose a new framework or technology. Operations people like stability and consistency. Developers like choice.

In other words, Red Hat's work with GWT is a chance for Red Hat to cater to developers already-expressed desires for a Red Hat RIA story, but within the context of the enterprise. This, of course, requires a developer focus, and for that I also asked Michael Neale, a senior engineer on the JBoss Drools project with Red Hat, to give me the developer perspective on Red Hat's GWT development:… Read more

Years ago it was fairly common to see Red Hat and other so-called "strategic investors" taken an active part in venture financings. In one of the most ironic venture investments ever, Novell was an early investor in Red Hat. I imagine it would happily trade the outsized return it received way back when for another 10 points in market share today....

While SAP and Intel remain active, most technology corporations have shelved their investment arms, with open-source leader Red Hat being no exception.

Until now.

On Wednesday, open-source business intelligence vendor JasperSoft announced a $12.5 million later-stage … Read more