Kiwi distie appointed to drive multi-device application development solutions

Soft Solutions has been appointed as the first New Zealand distributor for Embarcadero Technologies, an application and database development software provider.

Soft Solutions will distribute the entire Embarcadero product range, including its tools for application developers.

The distributor previously handled Embarcadero's database development tools, but has now been tasked with developing the market for the company's multi-device application development solutions for building natively compiled, multi-device apps from a single codebase.

Malcolm Groves, Embarcadero senior director, Asia Pacific and Japan, (pictured) says there is 'great opportunity' for partners to solve their customers' multi-device development issues.

“Unlike traditional platform-specific tools for Windows, Apple and Android devices, our solutions target all the major platforms with a single development effort. And, unlike scripted or interpreted solutions, organisations and developers can deliver natively compiled apps with a good user experience and performance levels.”

Meanwhile, Aaron Bhashkar, Soft Solutions business development manager, says there are two main opportunities for Embarcadero partners.

“Firstly, there is an opportunity for resellers among developers that need to deploy apps on multiple devices,” said Bhashkar.

“Secondly, we are seeing a lot of interest from tier one organisations which are simply not aware that they can use C++ or Delphi to develop iPhone and Android apps. Often they have been hiring external specialists for app development when they could be doing it themselves.”

Development demands

The appointment announcement coincided with the launch of the results of a new survey by Embarcadero Technologies, which shows New Zealand companies that have developed Windows applications are now under pressure to develop mobile apps, with 90% receiving requests from users or business stakeholders.

Fifty New Zealand developers were surveyed. Two-thirds had been asked by users or business stakeholders to develop new applications for mobile device and two-thirds had been asked to deliver some functionality of existing applications on mobile devices, while 44% had been asked to replicate existing applications.

The majority – 96% - said it would be valuable to have a tool that allowed developers to use a common source code to produce both desktop applications and native mobile apps with a single development effort.

In addition, 94% believed natively compiled apps deliver better user experience and performance than a scripted or interpreted solution like HTML5 or JavaScript.

“The shift to mobile and other device-specific apps has been like a land grab,” says Groves. “But in the rush to deliver apps, developers have taken risks and sacrificed things like performance, user experience and platform independence.

“With Embarcadero's tools, you don't have to make those sacrifices to develop apps quickly. You don't have to pick iOS first and do Android later, you can do them both at the same time.”