Appcelerator aims to become a complete mobile platform with new cloud services

Mobile app development platform Appcelerator today unveiled its new offerings, Appcelerator Cloud Services and the latest version of its development platform, Titanium 2.0. With Titanium 2.0, developers using Appcelerator’s platform can now create both native iOS and Android apps and web apps that can be run on a smartphone’s browser while working in Javascript and other web-based technology. For developers who already have apps built outside of Titanium, Appcelerator now offers cloud services. “This is our next big product offering in terms of completing our mobile platform vision,” explains Nolan Wright, Appcelerator’s co-founder and CTO. “If they want to use all of our technology, great. But, if they only want to use pieces, we want to support them.” Appcelerator Cloud Services allows developers to incorporate cloud features using pre-built APIs into their apps, skipping the need to set up servers and write code and scripts. Built off technology the company acquired when it bought app infrastructure provider Cocoafish earlier this year, developers working in Objective-C, Java, HTML5 or even on other development platforms like Sencha can use Appcelerator’s Cloud Services. Appcelerator currently offers developers over a dozen common features such as photo storage and sharing, push notifications, check-ins, status updates, ratings, messaging and chat. The service is built on a freemium model, which means developers don’t have to pay up front to add the APIs, and are instead billed based on how much the services scale as they are used. With the release of Appcelerator Cloud services the company can expand its client base beyond developers who choose to use Titanium to build their apps. However, it also puts the company in direct competition with companies like Amazon and Softlayer, who also offer cloud services to app developers. According to Wright, Appcelerator stands apart because its offerings are not only more complete -- the company offers a marketplace, development platform, analytics and now cloud services to developers -- but also because they're easy to use. “If you go to Amazon, you have to set up a webserver, set up an appserver, set up a database, write your server code and then write scripts to monitor it to make sure it scales properly as you get more usage,” he says. “We’re trying to remove the complexity. We’re offering pre-built APIs that are common in mobile use cases. No hardware, no software, no scaling. More than 300,000 mobile developers are registered with Appcelerator, and together they have built over 40,000 apps. The company is backed by $48.5 million in funding from Storm Ventures, Sierra Ventures, eBay, Translink Capital, Relay Ventures and others.

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Appcelerator aims to become a complete mobile platform with new cloud services

Kathleen De Vere

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