Fighting off fierce competition from more than 20 nominees Yesterday night, the mobile app SuperOffice Pocket CRM was awarded by the Norwegian Computer Society (NCS) for Best Usability on 22. November 2010. The NCS is the largest interest society for IT in Norway, and its Rosing prize is considered to be the most prestigious Norwegian IT industry distinction. Are you surprised that a CRM company won this prize? I’m not.

After using SuperOffice Pocket CRM on a daily basis for half a year, I’m totally addicted. The mobile app keeps me updated on customers, prospects and any contacts, my colleagues’ calendars, our sales pipeline and much more. Everything smoothly integrated with our company’s CRM server. Every e-mail, group SMS or photo done with SuperOffice Pocket CRM is available real time on any SuperOffice client anywhere. From early morning to late night the app follows my professional life.

SuperOffice Pocket CRM is built with mBricks, our cross platform app framework. More so, our team has been deeply involved in the development project. SuperOffice is used by some 11k enterprises and 150k end users in 15 countries. Each customer has a unique server installation. The CRM system is business critical for them. Building one mobile app with full two-way interactivity, security, real time synchronization that works across handsets and mobile operating systems is a challenge, especially when usability never is an issue for negotiation. SuperOffice never compromises with user experience. That has always been their success recipe.

At mBricks, we’re proud to provide technology and services to a winner. In terms of market share and position, SuperOffice has been a winner for years. Now, they’re awarded for their latest innovation, the Pocket CRM mobile app. Knowing SuperOffice’s passion for usability, I’m not surprised that they can fight off competition from major fellow nominees, like Cisco/Tanberg, Trafikanten, Visma, NRK, Stortinget, Posten and many more. Actually, I would be surprised otherwise. Congratulations!

Svein Therkelsen, mBricks CEO

The Swedish airline Malmö Aviation, has had a mobile application on Java-enabled mobile phones for two years, and has now decided to upgrade it to cover also Android, iPhone and BlackBerry users.

Braathens IT Solutions is the company behind the mBricks based application. It has now been upgraded to support Android, iPhone and BlackBerry, thanks to mBricks cross-platform framework. By using the mBricks framework, such applications can be developed in an efficient way, reducing time compared to developing separate applications for the different platforms. For Android, BlackBerry as well as Java ME phones, just one mobile application has been written using mBricks development framework resulting in separate versions for each OS.

For the iPhone version, due to the lack of Java support, a native client application has been created, while all communication and server logic utilizes the latest mBricks cross-platform solutions. That saved considerable time in the development process.

This will be one of the first mobile applications based on mBricks 2.10 version. The result is a user friendly mobile application that runs on a wide set of mobile phones, including both feature-phones and smartphones.  It has been important to have the same look and feel of the application across all devices, as well as making it as user-friendly as possible.

The new application offers a rich set of features, such as flight online booking and check-in directly from the passenger’s mobile phone. The applications will be available in Q4, 2010.

Read more at www.braathensitsolutions.com and www.malmoaviation.se

Many companies have successfully released their first iPhone application, but they are reluctant to start developing for multiple platforms. Ideally it would be possible to create one application for all phones.

Unfortunately the mobile ecosystem is complex. According to research group Gartner, fragmentation of devices and operating systems prevails. No analysts predict that there will be one single winner in the OS race. If your ambition is to create a mobile application for as many phone users as possible, you have to develop for multiple devices and operating systems. And not just smartphones! Many feature phones are powerful enough to run mobile applications and provide a good user experience.

Important issues to address for application publishers:

• As there will be no one dominant mobile OS you will need to choose between parallel development for each operating system or using a cross-platform development framework.
• In the long run, you’re better off being less dependent of every single platform.
• Make your codebase as small as possible and focus where you have your expertise e.g. the functional features, user experience and industry solutions. Leave as much as possible to the framework and the operating system.
• Create one mobile application for all telephones with one common code base. That will save time, resources and money both when developing and even more when maintaining it.

One application for all mobile phones – Yes, we think it is possible!

Since 2004 mBricks has helped our customers to create mobile applications for very different markets, from CRM and ERP systems, to flight booking and management, electronic tracking systems, mobile payments and banking.

During all these years, our ambition has been to offer a framework that enables one single application to run all phones. First, we solved the problems caused by Java ME implementation differences (input output methods, soft keys, screen sizes etc.).Then, with the advent of new operating systems, we developed methods for keeping one code base for multiple phones. To date, we offer Cross-platform mobile application development for Java ME phones, Android and BlackBerry. With the new mBricks 2.10 we introduce a new communication protocol for iPhone, enabling one common message system and server side for all platforms. Due to the lack of iPhone Java support, it’s necessary to write your client application in native code, but all communication and server logic may be re-used, saving time and development resources. Would you like to read more on new mBricks 2.10 features? Click here

The answer to the question in the heading is yes. mBricks offer a complete development framework across devices and operating systems. Would you like to see your business reflected into a mobile application? Or you would simply like to see your existing application in more phones than iPhone? We at mBricks are happy to talk with you about the possibilities. Get in touch.

mBricks 2.10 has been released. In this new version of mBricks mobile application development framework we have moved one step forward and offer new cross-platform features for Java ME , iPhone, Android and BlackBerry phones, minimizing development effort, time and cost.

Applications can be written for BlackBerry, Java ME and Android using a single code base. The three versions do support native menus and navigation. This is an important point, because the user interface on a BlackBerry is different compared to an Android phone, which again is different from a Java ME phone.

mBricks 2.10 includes a new client mBricks MessageSystem for iPhone. iPhone user interfaces are developed natively using Apple Xcode. The communication infrastructure and server can be shared with the other mobile platforms. When using the mBricks framework in your development process, you will be able to develop true cross-platform mobile applications.

Another key new feature has been added on the usability front: mBricks 2.10 release includes better support for Java based touch-phones. For Android we have improved our adapter to support the native on-screen keyboard. This will enhance the usability using keyboard input on Android phones.

Regarding security: we have implemented a software HTTP-stack which support Bouncy Castle TLS. This HTTP-stack software can be used as an alternative to the device HTTPS implementation to get full control of the security aspects including the client certificates. We have extracted the Bouncy Castle implementation from mBricks giving the opportunity to control the version or to modify the Bouncy Castle library.

For a complete list of new features please click here.

For a presentation of mBricks development framework click here.

27 November 2009: Fighting off stiff competition from 15 other companies, mBricks came out as this year’s winner of the Telenor Partner Prize and NOK 100,000. In collaboration with SuperOffice, mBricks developed an ideal solution for providing PC solutions on mobiles. In the partner competition, mBricks put forward a framework for the development of applications for mobile phones and demonstrated the use of the framework with a solution that it had developed with SuperOffice.

mBricks’ technology is designed to enable PC solutions to be provided on mobiles. The technology helps developers to create a single application that can be used on the great majority of mobiles phones, with a very good user interface, and that makes use of the mobile’s various resources, such as its camera, memory and GPS.

“We are very grateful for the recognition that the jury has given mBricks with this prize. We are now looking forward to continuing our exciting collaboration with Telenor in order to realise our common goal of making our companies’ PC solutions available on ordinary mobile phones, both in Norway and internationally,” mBricks’ CEO Svein Therkelsen says. “Telenor is one of the leading operators that both stimulates innovative solutions and, very importantly, actually implements new technology for its customers. We value our collaboration with Telenor highly and we are making every effort to continue to develop technical solutions that will provide user-friendly services for its customers,” Therkelsen continues.

“With mBricks’ technology, developers can create a solution that functions across all mobile phones that can operate Java, and in so doing to reach the great majority of mobile users,” says Frank Elter, who heads up the jury at Telenor. Elter believes that mBricks’ development platform will stimulate the development of advanced mobility solutions. The collaboration with SuperOffice shows that such solutions are now commercially mature. Developers can focus on a single platform instead of producing adapted solutions for the great variety of different types of phones. The solution also has a potential for internationalisation. “The jury believes that this solution will enable a great many companies and users to benefit from mobile solutions both in Norway and internationally,” Elter says.

The Telenor jury consisted of Stein Tømmer, Pål Normann Johannsen, Hans Christian Hauglie and its foreman Frank Elter.

When I first read e-mail and updated contacts and calendar on my first Microsoft mobile phone, I was amazed. The company’s Exchange server pushed data smoothly to my beautiful Qtek 8010 some five years ago, and I understood my way of working was about to change. Independent of time and place I was connected to the pulse of communication in our company. The trend was significant, and companies like BlackBerry paved its way to success with secure access to e-mail. Actually, PIM-services became essential features in all business phones.

However, work is far more than personal information and communication. Companies depend on a wide range of enterprise software applications. These are collaborative tools of larger systems, often referred to as ERP. Such systems are business critical and efficient access for employees is vital for business. When these systems become available on regular mobile phones, we’re talking about a new shift to mobility for enterprises.

In Europe, no CRM vendors have a larger installed base of customers than SuperOffice. With 11000 enterprise installations worldwide their position remains unrivaled. For almost twenty years they have been chasing ease of use for their customers, and with their newly launched product SuperOffice Pocket CRM, they set a new standard for accessibility to enterprise systems.

SuperOffice Pocket CRM is built with mBricks. We provide technology for development and operation of mobile applications. With mBricks you develop one application which runs on most handsets available. Our mission is to enable the shift to mobility for enterprise software companies, and you can’t get a better proof of that concept than this week’s launch of SuperOffice Pocket CRM.

Similar to my experience with the Qtek phone years ago, I’m now facing new changes to my way of working. Being a SuperOffice user I have instant access to our CRM system on my mobile phone. I can monitor my colleagues’ sales pipeline, their weighted sales forecast, change meetings and contact details, add pictures from my camera phone, send SMS and e-mail and much more, everything in the same, familiar user interface of SuperOffice I know from my computer. This is the next generation of mobile enterprise services – and I’m using it already.

Svein Therkelsen, mBricks CEO

Press release from SuperOffice and mBricks