Volantis’ Open Source Mobility Server Links the Mobile Web to Web 2.0

GUILDFORD, United Kingdom--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Volantis Systems today announced version 5.1 of Volantis Mobility Server (VMS) Community Edition™, which brings the power of Web 2.0 to the mobile world through an open source product. This latest release of VMS Community Edition makes it easier for developers to create “mash-up” mobile applications and also includes optimizations for the Apple® iPhone®. Released under the GNU General Public License (GPL), version 3, VMS Community Edition 5.1 is an update to the first open source edition of the product.

Volantis Mobility Server™ includes connectors that integrate with a variety of dynamic content sources, including websites, databases, web services, XML documents and now for specific Web 2.0 services. Developers include the connectors in their mobile sites by using simple XML markup tags, reducing the reliance on Java™ programming, automatically ingesting, transforming, bundling and optimizing content across all mobile devices.

Volantis Mobility Server includes connectors for the following Web 2.0 services:

• Picasa® connector: Picasa is a Google® application that helps users to find, organize and share photos. Photos are grouped in albums, and tagged for quick retrieval. The Picasa connector allows for the inclusion of photographs in mobile mash-ups. The photographs are automatically optimized by the Volantis Mobility Server mobile devices, through reference to Volantis’ integrated device database.
• Flickr® connector: Flickr, owned by Yahoo!®, is an image and video community service for users to organize and share photos. The Flickr connector allows for the inclusion of photos in mobile mash-ups. The photographs are automatically optimized by the Volantis Mobility Server mobile devices, through reference to Volantis’ integrated device database.
• Google Docs™ connector: Google Docs includes on-line word processor, spreadsheet and presentation applications. The Google Docs connector enables the inclusion of these documents in mash-ups, which are then automatically optimized to be read on mobile devices by the Volantis Mobility Server mobile devices, through reference to Volantis’ integrated device database. The word processor will be the first application supported, with spreadsheet and presentation application to follow later in the year.

Said Volantis CEO Mark Watson: “The mobile environment is growing by leaps and bounds and quickly merging with the fixed web. At Volantis we are committed to helping the community take full advantage of this shift as well as build in the strength of that community. We will continue to advance the open source version of the Volantis Mobility Server through the GPL version 3.”

Volantis plans to add further connectors in future releases of Volantis Mobility Server, emphasizing connectivity with other Web 2.0 applications. Planned connectors include other components of Google Docs (spreadsheets and presentations), RSS feed ingestion and connectors for other social networking platforms, including Google’s OpenSocial™ developer API.

Volantis Mobility Server provides a runtime framework, a database of device information and a set of development tools, all of which are aimed at developers of mobile applications. VMS is entirely written in Sun’s Java programming language, and requires a servlet container, such as Apache’s open source Tomcat® server, for runtime support. VMS includes programmer support for other web application development languages such as PHP™ and Ruby™.

VMS Community Edition currently supports 5,700 mobile devices within the Volantis Device Database™, using this to deliver device-aware services that are developed independently of device-specific issues. Information about new devices from around the world is continually added to the Device Database as part of the Volantis Device Update program. Access to the complete Device Database, which currently supports over 5,900 devices, and to the Device Update program is available as part of the fully supported Professional Edition. The key subset of data which is available to users of the Community Edition is refreshed several times a year.

The Volantis Mobility Server Community Edition is available for download at http://www.volantis.com/downloads.

About Volantis

Volantis (www.volantis.com) helps organizations solve the complexity of selling and delivering digital content to thousands of unique devices, without compromise, to the highest quality user experience, performance and reliability. Volantis software is protected by the following granted and pending patent applications: United Kingdom: 2371896, European Patent EP 1320972 (Ireland, France, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Spain, Switzerland), pending European Patent Application EP 1641211 (designating Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom), Hong Kong: HK1049046, Japan: 2002-531257, Singapore: 95431, 200301776-9, India: 325/DEL/03, South Korea: 7004318/03, People's Republic of China: ZL01819526, US: 10/381802.

Apache and Tomcat are trademarks of the Apache Software Foundation

iPhone is a registered trademark of Apple Computer

Picasa and Opensocial are registered trademarks of Google Inc.

PHP is a registered trademark of The PHP Group

Ruby is a trademark of David Heinemeier Hansson

Flickr is a registered trademark of Yahoo! Inc.

Sun and Java are registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc.

All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners