In a mid April post on Mobiles Ascendant, I posited that mobiles were ready to go up against not just PCs but the Cloud for business loyalty. The basic argument is that the mobile interface and computing power have matured so rapidly – see our takes on computing power, storage, power and displays for digital cameras as insights into what is available for mobile phone hardware. It is very powerful – such that mobiles are now becoming the equivalent of pocket laptops.
So lets take a look at mobile software developing on RIM. First, if you go to the RIM site, you will see the usual games and desktop access prohgrams. But the heart of the matter is the developers portion of the software website where designers discover a wealth of Java desktop and Blackberry-oriented Java tools tied in with Eclipse and other Java developer tools. Once again, Java equals facility at reaching to various business software suites. So it should be no surprise that SAP and IBM are taking advantage of offering Blackberry tie-ins.
IBM is furthest down this road and has enhancements to WebSphere Portal, for dashboards and portals, Lotus Notes and Domino server lets users access calendaring, mail and messaging on BlackBerrys. But the most intriguing connect is between IBMs newly acquired Cognos BI subsidiary and Blackberry. IBM Cognos 8 provides a broad range of of business intelligence capabilities – taking advanatge of Cognos Java and JavasCripting smarts. The two vendors intend to extend these capabilities into social networking and collaboration spheres. IBM see this as a way to get Notes and Cognos into accounts that other wise might be Microsoft or Oracle inclined.
But the bottom line is that RIM has the hardware and software computing power to deliver pocket laptop like capabilities. What will be interesting to see is if Adobe or JavaFx makes any dent into the RIM software base. Stay tuned.