Alcatel-Lucent targets mobile apps market with OpenPlug acquisition

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 02 September 2010 16:26

Business IT - Technology

Alcatel-Lucent has followed up its acquisition of ProgrammableWeb with the acquisition of mobile software and applications development tools vendor OpenPlug to extend its role in the applications space by delivering a platform where application developers can write an application once that can then be translated to run on any of the five major mobile operating systems.

According to Alcatel-Lucent, OpenPlug's functionality will "enable service providers, enterprises and developers [to] create and deploy applications - in virtually record time and without sacrificing the unique customer experience - across multiple mobile devices and within service provider app stores.

"As a result, applications that had previously only been available on more sophisticated devices such as smartphones, can now be enjoyed by consumers on any mobile device, which opens up opportunities in emerging markets, where low cost mobile phone circulation is highest."

OpenPlug has commercialised, under the ELIPS name, a range of patented technologies that facilitate the development of mobile phones, smartphones and the applications that run on them.

ELIPS Studio is claimed to "offer the first open software development environment allowing independent software vendors (ISVs) to create and deploy simultaneously in record time their mobile applications on iPhone, Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile, Linux and other proprietary systems."

Laura Merling, vice president of Alcatel-Lucent's global developer strategy, said: "This isn't purely a mobile play - the software can be extended to support application development for IPTV set top boxes, game consoles, even the ng Connect LTE Connected Car."

She told iTWire "One of the interesting things that OpenPlug has done is that when you compile the application they use the native operating system for that platform so the consumer experience is the way they expect it to be on every device.

"It takes advantage of the screen size and the interactions you expect. You can't really tell that someone used the same tool to build an app for an iPhone or an Android, and that is something we found really interesting."

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