Blackberry and Windows Phone’s Improved Capabilities Renew Developer Interest
Appcelerator Readies Titanium Tablet SDK for April 5 Launch

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF. — Wednesday, March 31, 2010 — Appcelerator®, the leading platform for rapidly developing native mobile, desktop, and iPad applications using web technologies, announced updated findings of its Mobile Developer Survey taken of application developers about their plans to build applications for various mobile and tablet platforms. Taken last week from a pool of Appcelerator’s 33,000+ application developers, 1,028 developers responded about their plans to prioritize iPad development within an increasingly fragmented and competitive landscape. This survey is posted on www.appcelerator.com/mobile-developer-survey.

Below are the findings from the survey, which was taken as Appcelerator’s iPad beta concludes with a Titanium Tablet SDK officially rolling out on April 5, 2010. Titanium Tablet will enable web developers to build 100% native iPad applications using the skills they have today. The findings show that the mobile platform landscape has evolved significantly during this first quarter. While Apple interest remains high, Android is almost neck and neck with iPhone, and two other providers — RIM and Microsoft — have renewed interest from developers due to improvements to their platforms. Now, more than ever, companies considering mobile apps need to have a robust cross-platform strategy.

iPad Interest Remains Strong, Trumps Kindle 4-to-1

When Appcelerator first surveyed its developer base prior to Apple’s iPad announcement in January of this year, interest in the platform was overwhelmingly high. Fast forward two months, and interest remains strong, but off the wild enthusiasm in January: 80% of developers now say they are interested in building an iPad app within the first year compared to 90% in January. When asked about overall interest in iPad as a development platform, 53% responded that they were ‘very interested’ — third behind iPhone and Android. As a point of reference, Amazon Kindle, surveyed for the first time, has only 12% of developers claiming a similar level of interest in its recently announced SDK.

In follow-up interviews, Appcelerator found that moderating iPad interest was primarily due to a lack of a few features originally thought to be included in the iPad, such as a camera and support for multi-tasking. Moreover, developers with over 1,000 employees cited having an iPhone, Android, and/or Blackberry app as critical,’ while only 36% said they were very interested in the iPad. On the other end, 54% of developers with 10 or fewer employees said they were very interested, as small companies look to claim a first-mover advantage in the App Store.

As far as developer plans around iPad, respondents cited eBooks, entertainment and media applications, business applications, medical applications, and education applications as likely candidates for planned apps on Apple’s new device, consistent with January’s results.

Google, RIM, and Microsoft Heat Up the Mobile Platform Race

Increased competition among mobile platforms features a two-horse, tightening race between Android and iPhone. In January, 86% of developers were very interested in creating apps for the iPhone and 68% were very interested in doing so for Android — an 18 point spread. That spread has closed to just six points in the current survey (iPhone 87%, Android 81%, followed by iPad at 53%).

And while iPhone, Android and iPad are still the top application development candidates for developers, two platforms have made significant inroads with developers. Blackberry has doubled from 21% developer support in January to 43% in March, while Windows Phone has nearly tripled from 13% to 34%. Both vendors have announced major improvements to their device capabilities during the first quarter, which is clearly translating into market opportunity for developers. "I do mostly business applications, so the phones that are big in business are big with me," claimed one developer interested in both platforms.

Platforms on the Brink

On the other end of the spectrum are the mobile platforms in decline. Palm, at only 17% in January (but ahead of Windows), fell further to 14% saying they were very interested in the platform in March as financial troubles gave rise to developer concern. Meego — the newly branded effort by Nokia and Intel — came in at 12%, and Symbian at just 16%. One developer remarked that his priorities were driven by "marketplace success and how long the platform will be around."

Need for a Cross-Platform Strategy

With the race for first place tightening between iPhone and Android and with the showdown for the enterprise looming, the need for a short and long-term, cross-platform development solution has never been greater.

"Since January of this year, we’ve nearly doubled to over 33,000 large and small developers," noted Jeff Haynie, CEO, Appcelerator. "The consistent feedback that we hear is that developers are looking for a cross-platform solution without compromise — one that enables not only support for multiple platforms with increasing popularity, but native support for the user experiences that make each platform unique. The Appcelerator team is committed to supporting everything that makes the iPhone, Android, iPad, and soon Blackberry, popular devices. "

About Appcelerator

Appcelerator enables web developers, ad agencies, ISVs, and enterprises to take advantage of the explosive growth in mobile, desktop, and iPad applications. The company’s flagship offering, Titanium, is the only open source platform to enable cross-platform development, from a single codebase, at web development speed for these three platforms. Appcelerator’s customers can leverage their exiting skills and open, industry standard technologies to decrease time-to-market and development costs, increasing customer adoption and revenues, and enjoying greater flexibility and control. For more information, please visit www.appcelerator.com.

Appcelerator is a registered trademark of Appcelerator, Inc. Appcelerator Titanium is a trademark of Appcelerator, Inc.

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Press Contact:
Carmen Hughes
Ignite PR
carmen@ignitepr.com
Tel: 650.227.3280 ext. 1
Cell: 650.576.6444

Performance Increases Five-Fold; Introduces Premium Support, Training and Analytics

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF. – March 8, 2010 – Appcelerator®, the leading platform for rapidly developing native mobile, desktop, and iPad applications using web technologies, announced today the release of its flagship product, Appcelerator Titanium™ 1.0, for General Availability ("GA").  Titanium 1.0 has been redesigned to achieve performance on par with Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android SDKs, and is the first cross-platform solution to achieve this milestone.  Appcelerator also introduced a new commercial offering for premium support, training, and analytics, available for purchase beginning today.

Develop at Web Speed, Run at Native Speed

Many developers, in particular web development firms, systems integrators and interactive agencies, are turning to Appcelerator to deliver a cross-platform application development solution that gives them a native advantage.  These developers require performance on par with Apple and Google’s SDK, native user experience capabilities, and native access to the underlying device capabilities (eg: camera, video streaming, maps) on each platform.

"The proliferation of ’smart’ devices with multiple operating systems is causing serious platform fragmentation and, as a result, every company needs to reassess their development strategy today," advises Scott Ellison, Vice-President Mobile, IDC.  "Appcelerator improves upon the ‘write once, deploy anywhere’ approach by enabling cross-platform development of applications that leverage the native performance and capabilities of each unique device from a cost effective, web technology-driven code base."

Appcelerator spent three months – and more than tripled its code base – to upgrade Titanium’s mobile processing engine.  The resulting performance improvements put significant distance between Titanium and competing solutions.  Load times are now under 3 seconds, down from 10-20 seconds, transitions between pages are instantaneous, and processing speed has improved five-fold.  Moreover, user experience capabilities have dramatically increased to now include over 100 native UI controls, native 2D/3D animation capabilities, and sophisticated data and media presentation capabilities.  Branded applications, casual games, and even augmented reality applications are now possible.  For more on Appcelerator’s native advantage, see: http://www.appcelerator.com/products/native/

Notably, the code – and time – required to develop a typical application is a fraction of what it takes to build a native app.  Streaming an audio clip, for example, can take between 50-500 lines of Objective-C (iPhone) or Java (Android) code.  In Titanium, the developer simply writes one line in Javascript that points to a URL location to have the clip start streaming.  Most Titanium developers today save more than 80% of the time and cost it would take to build an application in Objective-C or Java.

"After being in market 6 months, we realized that the user experience needs to be at parity with native development platforms.  Anything less is a non-starter.  We are pleased to be the first and only cross-platform solution to run on par with native applications, but with the development speed that comes from using web technologies," noted Jeff Haynie, CEO of Appcelerator.

Appcelerator Announces Commercial Offering

To support its growing ecosystem of more than 27,000 professional developers, Appcelerator also introduced two offerings to serve individual and large developer organizations.  The following products, now available from www.appcelerator.com, feature in-application analytics, premium support from Appcelerator’s experts, and professional training to get developers up to speed quickly:

• Titanium Community: available for free, Titanium Community will enable new developers to learn how to build native applications. 
• Titanium Professional: available for $199 per developer per month, Titanium Professional offers developers premium SLA-driven support, analytics for the past 6 months, and membership in Appcelerator’s Beta Preview program for future releases such as iPad and Blackberry.

Appcelerator Analytics

Appcelerator analytics gives developers deep insights into how their apps are performing, what features are being used the most, and where there are opportunities for improvement.  Analytics are integrated into the Titanium platform, so tracking users and sessions, for example, is enabled out-of-the-box.  This avoids the time and cost of manually integrating analytics after the fact, as is the case in any other analytics offering.  Analytics also offers custom event tracking, which is specific to each application.  A location-based application, for instance, can record GPS lookups to know where their user base is, while a social networking application can track the number of posts to a Facebook wall or number of videos watched.

Premium Support

As part of Titanium Professional, subscribers benefit from SLA-driven support, rapid updates, bug fixes and hot patches to resolve issues quickly.  Appcelerator’s support team is tightly integrated with engineering to ensure that common issues are fed back into product development efficiently.

Developer Center Launches

Appcelerator also launched Developer Center (developer.appcelerator.com) today, which features new documentation, getting started guides, and code examples.  Developer Center features a new training course curriculum for Titanium developers as part of its previously announced "Appcelerator University" program.

"Over the past year, we’ve listened to feedback from over 27,000 developers who are building a business on Titanium.  Today’s GA announcement is a comprehensive rollout of services, training, and support products that are packaged into three offerings designed to meet the needs of all our developers," commented, Nolan Wright, CTO of Appcelerator.

About Appcelerator

Appcelerator enables web development firms, systems integrators and interactive agencies to take advantage of the explosive growth in mobile, desktop, and tablet applications.  The company’s flagship offering, Titanium, is the only open source platform to enable cross-platform development, from a single codebase, at web development speed for these three platforms.  Appcelerator’s customers can decrease time-to-market and development costs to create native mobile applications using their existing web development skills.   For more information, please visit www.appcelerator.com.

Appcelerator is a registered trademark of Appcelerator, Inc.  Appcelerator Titanium is a trademark of Appcelerator, Inc.

# # #

Press Contact:
Carmen Hughes
Ignite PR
carmen@ignitepr.com
Tel: 650.227.3280 ext. 1
Cell: 650.576.6444