BUSINESS AGILITY

Enterprise App Stores Harness HTML5

R. Colin Johnson | Date: 06-28-11 | Comments

Software developers used to have to rewrite their apps for each platform they serve, duplicating their efforts for Apple's iOS, Google's Android, RIM's BlackBerry Playbook and Hewlett-Packard's webOS, but no more. Now, enterprise IT can provide universal HTML5 apps provisioned from cloud-computing resources to serve employees, regardless of platform.

The "Financial Times" rocked the application community recently by sidestepping mobile-device vendors' application stores by providing universal HTML5 applications that users can't tell from a normal application.

After downloading, the HTML5 application remains in local cache memory even after the user goes offline. When harnessed by enterprise IT, these new universal HTML5 applications can be provisioned and managed using cloud-computing resources.

IT organizations serving their employees with such universal HTML5 applications can harness built-in authentication and security apparatuses that keep data private while simultaneously preventing applications from becoming avenues for intrusions. For instance, Volt from Antenna Software provides cloud-computing resources that manage all the infrastructure details that put enterprise managers in direct control of their employees' HTML5 applications regardless of the mobile device they are using.

The Volt client application allows enterprises to authenticate their employees' mobile devices from the cloud-based Antenna Mobility Platform from which universal HTML5 applications are provisioned.

Antenna's Mobility Platform has been marketed as the "AT&T Workbench" for more than a year. Recently, however, Antenna has begun licensing its seminal Antenna Mobility Platform to other enterprises, including Korea Telecomm and Europe's Vodaphone Group.

The system works by allowing enterprises to develop their own persistent HTML5 applications�typically for expense accounting, travel authorization, scheduling and other employee functions�with Antenna's cloud computers handling provisioning, data collection, authentication and security. Employees start by downloading the native Volt application to their mobile device, after which, Antenna's cloud computers take over the provisioning and the enterprise's HTML5 applications.

Enterprise IT is provided with a dashboard that allows it to monitor employees, authorize applications, collect data, and provide responses to employee requests, such as approvals for travel and other expense reports. Business analytics is also provided to enable enterprises to assist in budgeting, planning and other managerial functions. And because Volt is a native application written by Antenna for each platform, HTML5 running under it can access all the special hardware, such as smartphone cameras and card readers, that are ordinarily impossible to access from HTML5.

"The HTML5 applications are built by our enterprise customers with full access to all native resources," said Jason Wong, product marketing manager for Antenna's Volt. "We provide the enterprise sandbox and cloud-hosting services to make it all work."

Antenna is currently expanding its enterprise customer list to major carrier partners worldwide, but claims its cloud-computing services are economical enough for organizations with as few as 100 employees. For the future, the company plans to allow enterprises to offer its cloud-based managed HTML5 applications directly to consumers.