Kapow Software has released Kapow Mobile Katalyst as a platform for rapid mobile-enablement of business applications.

The post-PC era writing has gone from the wall to the tablet, and many enterprises, customer-facing retailers and service providers therefore want to make more of their web and business applications work on popular mobile smartphone and tablet devices such as Android and iOS.

"It’s no surprise that millions of employees around the world are bringing their smartphones and mobile devices to work, resetting workplace expectations to have always-on access to the instantly available business apps that they’ve grown accustomed to from their personal lives," said Stefan Andreasen, Founder and CTO, Kapow Software.

However, many of these applications do not come with application programming interfaces (APIs), or complete APIs, and the transition to workable and dependable mobile apps can be arduous, expensive, time-consuming and some times nearly impossible. [Disclosure: Kapow is a sponsor of BriefingsDirect podcasts.]

Kapow has entered the mobile migration opportunity with a platform and tools that wrap underlying logic and transaction services from existing applications into a series of REST and SOAP services. Such functions as shopping baskets and transaction integrations and business logic can be re-purposed to mobile devices as native apps in a few months versus much longer, said Andreasen.

Kapow Katalyst accesses and integrates the data and business logic of nearly any existing packaged or proprietary business applications without requiring APIs, he said. Adding a service-level interface to a legacy application is a complex development project requiring an extensive rewrite — years of planning, coding, and testing as well as spending, disrupting, and, too often abandoning, he said.

Visual tools and mappings

Using visually built flow-charts and data mappings to control the application’s business logic through its existing web interface, users can then deploy the "mobilized" application with one click into a production environment without re-writing any existing code, according to Kapow.

Furthermore, Kapow Mobile Katalyst allows for repurposing of existing applications as mobile applications, but leaving the underlying systems untouched.

Kapow is partnering with companies that specialize in mobile front-end development such as Antenna Software. “A mobile website is only as good as the data that supports it,” said Jim Somers, chief marketing & strategy officer at Antenna Software. “Together with Kapow Mobile Katalyst, we are able to accelerate the delivery of our mobile web solutions to help drive significant business value for our customers, quickly. We’ve proven our joint success with several leading global brands and look forward to building on this relationship.”

Kapow Mobile Katalyst is available now and can be deployed on-premises or via a hosted online service from Kapow.

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