Google Entices Mobile Developers To Its Cloud With Kinvey

Google wants to make it extremely easy for developers to use its cloud to build mobile applications. Today, it has a new partner to entice developers to do just that.

Google has partnered with Boston-based mobile cloud services company Kinvey to easily connect mobile applications to its Google App Engine cloud. The partnership is specifically targeted at enterprise developers who tend to require a lot of support, consume a lot of data and need simple solutions to create and support cloud infrastructure for their mobile devices.

“Developers using Kinvey can deploy directly from Kinvey into App Engine. The reciprocal also holds true. Developers using App Engine can consume Kinvey's services using the libraries we’ve built for App Engine,” said Joe Chernov, VP of Marketing at Kinvey.

The announcement comes two days after Google announced a “Mobile Backend Starter” for tying Android apps to Google App Engine. The partnership between Google and Kinvey will expand on the fairly simple starter package and also allow developers building iOS and HTML5 apps to tie their cloud infrastructure to App Engine.

Enticing Developers With The Cloud

If you are looking to build a mobile application with rich cloud functionality, you have a few options. You could build it yourself by selecting and configuring a technology stack; writing all the code and connecting the application programming interfaces and then deploy it and secure it. Good luck finding a developer who knows how to do all of that and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.

Or, you could have a fairly simple automated process do it all for you.

That is the opportunity that several startup companies saw a couple years ago. StackMob, Parse, Appcelerator, Kinvey, Applicasa, FeedHenry and a variety of others moved quickly to serve this need, which has been termed “Backend as a Service” (BaaS) in the developer world. It didn’t take long for the large cloud providers and mobile platform owners (like Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Facebook) to realize that they needed to offer this type of service and each have moved aggressively to build their own capabilities, partner with the startups providing these solutions or straight-up acquire the companies making them.

The basic thought from the ecosystem owners is, “we’ll make it easy for you to build cloud infrastructure if you build for our platforms.” That is one of the prime reasons that Facebook bought Parse earlier this year, to bring brands to Facebook’s app ecosystem. Microsoft has Azure Mobile Services, which is essentially its own BaaS offering. It is why Google is partnering with Kinvey, to bring enterprises to both Android as well as App Engine.

The Maturation of Kinvey

Kinvey started as three guys from Austin, Texas with an idea to make it easier for developers to build cloud infrastructure for their apps. Kinvey got its wings as a participant in the TechStars Boston 2011 class and has been growing since.

Kinvey’s technology stack has grown in the last two years to the point where it would be economically difficult for any company to build from scratch.

“To build your own back-end stack, you’d probably need a year and a million dollars,” said Kinvey CEO Sravish Sridhar in a recent discussion.

Kinvey has moved aggressively to fill out that stack with partnerships (such as with push message service Urban AirShip, media cloud provider Brightcove and now Google) and has become a leader in helping developers solve problems with its helpful content marketing campaign.

Kinvey may be a champion of developers, but it also knows where the money is. Since leaving TechStars, Kinvey has made a push to become the cloud integrator for enterprises looking to scale mobile applications. The App Engine partnership with Google and its status as preferred technology partner with Facebook should help accelerate this growth.

Lead image courtesy Shutterstock.

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Eyeing Mobile, IBM Creates Odd-Couple Partnership With NoSQL Vendor 10gen

The rise of mobile apps has created tension in the world of data management. There's a disconnect between the fast-and-loose scalability of non-relational databases used to handle data for mobile applications and the prim-and-proper relational databases many businesses already use to manage their affairs.

To face such tensions, IBM is stepping into the fray with a new collaboration with 10gen, commercial vendors of the open source NoSQL MongoDB database system. The purpose? To bridge the gap between the new tech of online business with the legacy databases where enterprises already manage their business data.

The Database Odd Couple

Getting such systems to talk to each other is not impossible, but it can be painful: Data transforms and cross-database queries can be tenuous without solid application programming interfaces (APIs) and data connections in place, and such lash-ups can fail when tasked with production workloads. It's a little like Homer Simpson showing up for dinner at Downton Abbey: communication can happen, but it may not be pretty (especially if there's no doughnuts).

The effort announced by the two companies is part of Big Blue's MobileFirst program, IBM's effort to get a foothold in the mobile commerce and enterprise sectors. It's been a bumpy journey, because IBM is firmly ensconced in the world of relational databases with its DB2 product line and the WebSphere eXtreme Scale data grid platform. While well-suited for enterprise deployments, such data systems are not always appropriate for mobile databases, which need to scale under variable workloads and be able to handle the firehose of data that could come at any given moment from mobile or Web apps.

Handling all of that data separately from the rest of the business data would make life simpler for developers and database admins. Let the NoSQL databases deal with the mobile stuff and let the relational databases keep track of inventory, finances and payroll - you know, the boring stuff.

That's not how it works, of course. Increasingly, mobile apps generate revenue and information from that side of the business needs to be integrated with the rest of the in-house data. Or perhaps the opposite is true, and the mobile apps need to get at some legacy data in the enterprise systems.

Again, not impossible, but the connection often has to be set up at each instance. This is especially true if the mobile app in question is an enterprise mobile app to be used by employees.

Big Blue Still Makes Waves

On the technical side of the partnership, developers will be able to integrate MongoDB APIs within IBM's Worklight Studio to build their apps so the apps will connect to whatever data it needs.

Other companies have built connectors to non-relational databases before, and indeed 10gen has its own connectors to a variety of data systems. The entry of IBM in this space, however, lends more weight to getting relational and non-relational systems working together better. IBM's anointment of MongoDB also give 10gen a big shot of street cred in NoSQL-land.

It is probably no accident that this announcement comes a day after IBM announced that it's buying SoftLayer, which will be another tool in IBM's overall strategy: the cloud platform on which all of these cool enterprise apps can be run.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

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WiMax or Wi-Fi: Making the Decision on Mobile Access

When it comes to staying connected, the world wide web can now be accessed from multiple devices. However, the convenience of being able to poke around on a phone screen is just not the same as being able to send an email or access data from a regular computer, which is simply better designed to make it possible to manage functions on the net. And with so many people taking their online time away from a set location and simply connecting on the fly, it makes a whole lot of sense that it would be convenient to tote around a computer, rather than be beholden to a tinier device.

The trouble is that too many people assume that wireless internet comes in a single form: the world of traditional router-based Wi-Fi. It's true that this was a major development in the world of getting online. For one, it made it possible a few years ago to move away from the desk, long before cell phones provided data and the world was a series of tweets and check-ins at various venues across cities and countries alike. But these days, the idea of having to find a spot near a router for signal purposes just doesn't seem like a pleasant way of being able to access information or pull off important work. After all, it makes a lot more sense, and is a lot more convenient, to not plan one's time online around a spot that provides that kind of steady signal. And for anyone who has ever tried to find space at a popular wireless internet hot spot or actually counted on a hotel for a solid signal, the obvious frustration that comes with not having the technology live up to its expectations is something to take into account.

Fortunately, there are better options out there these days, and the best of the pack is WiMax. Those who are serious about being able to get online from anywhere without the help of a tiny phone will find it superior to Wi-Fi in that connecting does not require the memory of an intricate string of passwords for various networks; it simply requires flipping open a computer screen. There is instant access, and that is a far nicer way to get online than the frustrating pitfalls of having to deal with all of the hassle that comes along with accessing a variety of different networks. Plus, anyone who spends a lot of time hopping between different parts of a city, or even different cities, will no longer have to stress out about how it will be feasible to stay online. Instead, it's all about being able to connect via a series of towers to a nationwide network, and WiMax having that network in place is one of its major selling points, as it really does make all types of work considerably easier.

So anyone who is making that final call about whether or not to stick with old-world Wi-Fi or make that leap to the next generation, think about the convenience factor: what is the best possible way to stay connected, one that requires constant changes and environmental factors, or something that is seamless at transitioning from location to location?

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How to Get Vodafone Mobile Connect

Since it's has been released by Vodafone company, because of its usefulness and convenience, Vodafone Mobile Connect has become more popular than before. Many people with a mobile phone try to use Vodafone Mobile Connect software to link up the internet so that they can surf the internet and get information about events that happened all around the world. With it, you can just stay at home or work in the company, and you are still able to be a person that knows everything. Until now, there has been 8591 users using this software and enjoy everything it brings to them.

It is software which is free to download for everyone from the official website, such as Vodafone.com or download.cnet.com. If you are a new user of this software, or you are interested in it and want to have a try to use it, enjoying everything it can bring to you, there is a guide about the steps to get it as follows which can induce you to get what you want.

Step 1: The software is designed specially for use with the range of Vodafone Mobile Connect data cards, so if you want to use it, you must firstly buy a card that supports it.

Step 2: Open one of the two websites as mentioned above as you like with your own web browser.

Step 3: There are many popular versions for all kinds of operating systems and mobile phones. On trying to load your software, check out that you have selected the suitable version for your operating system or your mobile phone, and then click the 'Download now' button to load the software to your device.

Step 4: If you want to get all the updates of it, you could link up from the Vodafone.com page to the business section for all the updates that you need on the electronic product.

After all the above steps, you can activate your software so that you can access to the internet in the form of wireless connections just with a USB flash card or modem attached to your wireless device. With the help of the software, you'll never be bored, and you can just stay at home, receiving and accepting email, checking your message board or having a chat with your friends with the software installed in your device via the wireless internet.

What are you waiting for? Put it into practice now.

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