Web services, XML, enhanced security and platform support give developers unmatched capabilities for high-performance, platform-independent mobile applications

CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment, LOS ANGELES, Sept. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- AppForge, Inc., a leading mobile solutions company, today announced Crossfire 6.5, the latest version of its patented, award-winning mobile application platform optimized for developing and delivering customer-facing mobile applications. Responding to a rapidly changing customer environment, AppForge has significantly enhanced Crossfire's unique ability to put applications on the widest array of mobile devices, regardless of language and platform, with a feature set that enables enterprises to provide rich, branded end-user self-service and content delivery applications.

"Today, our customers in key industries including healthcare, insurance, financial and travel services want to use Crossfire, not only to develop line-of-business applications, but to turn their customers' mobile devices into true Web services terminals," stated Gary P. Warren, Chairman and CEO, AppForge. "Crossfire 6.5 puts that ability into the hands of mobile Visual Studio developers, without a steep learning curve or the need to compromise on performance."

Key enhancements in Crossfire 6.5 include support for web services and for Symbian OS v9.

Web Services Support

Web services provide a structured and simple mechanism to access a broad range of information types from existing backend servers, without the need for data synchronization middleware. Crossfire 6.5, using the Microsoft Visual Studio .NET IDE and supporting classes in the Compact Framework, will enable developers to add "web references" to their projects. For example, a developer of a customer-facing travel application could easily add a Web service that delivers local weather information, with a look and feel close to that of any native object in the application.

"Palm works closely with its developers, providing resources to encourage and support their efforts to tap into the growing demand for mobile solutions," said Mike Rank, director of developer relations for Palm, Inc. "Crossfire 6.5 will be a powerful tool in our developers' arsenals to help inspire new products, streamline the development process and get customer-facing solutions to market quickly."

Symbian OS v9 Support

With Crossfire 6.5, AppForge introduces support for Symbian OS v9, including support for Symbian Signed, the industry-endorsed application signing program that promotes best practice in Symbian OS content and application development.

"As the leading provider of smartphone operating systems with 82 million devices shipped, we continually look for ways to drive innovation on Symbian OS," said Simon Garth, VP of Marketing, Symbian. "AppForge is an innovation enabler, providing developers around the world with a further development choice to create powerful applications that run on Symbian powered devices. By further extending the capabilities of Crossfire to support phones based on Symbian OS v9, this advantage will be available to an even wider customer base."

At product launch, Crossfire 6.5 will support Nokia Eseries devices, including the E61, as well as other devices that run Symbian 9. AppForge expects to expand support for additional devices on the Symbian 9 platform as they come to market.

  Other important new features of Crossfire 6.5 include:
  XML Support

Crossfire 6.5 provides a highly optimized implementation of the XML subsystem in the native environment for each platform. XML's platform-independent means of representing data means applications will have significantly better performance compared to applications built using C++ or Visual Basic facilities.

Networking and Security Enhancements

Crossfire 6.5 delivers three key new networking and security features to developers:

  * A "connection manager" class enables an application to enumerate the
    available network connections on a device, activate or deactivate a
    given connection, and respond to changes in the state of a particular
    connection.

  * Library-level access to network communications will allow developers to
    create cleaner, more succinct code, by accessing these services without
    having to initiate a control on a form at design time.

  * Crossfire will support the "https" protocol, automatically establishing
    a secure connection to URLs beginning with this qualifier.

  Microsoft Framework Compatibility

To further lower the learning curve, and simplify common programming tasks for Visual Studio developers, Crossfire 6.5 supports an expanded set of .NET and Compact Framework base utility classes, including String, DateTime, TimeSpan and various collection classes across all supported platforms.

BlackBerry Enhancements

A series of new controls will enable Crossfire 6.5 developers to create significantly more compelling applications for BlackBerry devices. "PictureBox" and grid controls give developers the ability to include images and grids on forms in the BlackBerry display. With a serial communications control, applications will be able to take advantage of Bluetooth capabilities on appropriately equipped RIM models. In addition, a new "fuser" capability opens up the full range of facilities in BlackBerry Java libraries.

"Like Java and Macromedia Flash in their respective spaces, Crossfire is a run time architecture that eliminates the need for businesses to compromise when it comes to mobile deployments," said Chris Tyburski, CTO, AppForge. "While completely transparent to the end-user, the market has embraced the concept of the virtual machine for mobile devices. Crossfire 6.5 is an important advance to an elegant, reliable platform upon which developers can build rich, on-device applications. Not only does Crossfire give businesses the tools they need to create powerful user experiences, but it does so while maximizing development and deployment efficiency, and 'future proofing' the environment for both customer facing and line-of-business mobile applications."

Expanded Partnerships

AppForge also announced today that it is strengthening its global reach through the signing of contracts with three resellers on two continents.

* Microway, a reseller in Australia specializing in development tools;

* Probitas, a value-added Distributor based in Portugal, who also provides solutions to customers in Spain and France;

* Synergy, a value-added distributor in Singapore/China

These companies join existing AppForge reseller partners, most notably QBS in the UK, SOS Developers in France, SITA in Italy, Strattus Software in Brazil, and Ingram Micro and Programmer's Paradise in the U.S.

About AppForge

Based in Atlanta, GA, AppForge, Inc. has more than 20 years experience in the mobile arena. Using a unique technology platform, Crossfire, the company enables enterprises to benefit from uncompromised mobile performance of internal and customer-facing applications, regardless of devices or platform. With AppForge, business executives don't have to worry about device diversity, device obsolescence, platform compatibility or the need to hire custom application developers. Businesses can leverage their current software development team and apply their skills and creativity to the world of mobility.

AppForge is behind many of the world's largest and most challenging mobile deployments, with thousands of customers having used Crossfire to deploy applications on millions of devices. The company works with the world's leading device manufacturers and developers to continuously innovate and expand the mobile ecosystem. For more information, visit http://www.appforge.com/.

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