MobiCloud Project to Develop a European Corporate Appstore
STOCKHOLM and BRUSSELS, January 31, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --
European Consortium Receives EU Funding Contract to Develop Mobile Workforce
Applications in the Cloud
The MobiCloud consortium announced today that it has successfully finalized
negotiations with the European Commission Directorate-General of Communications Networks,
Content and Technology (DG CONNECT). The MobiCloud project will be co-funded under the ICT
Policy Support Programme (PSP) Competitiveness and Innovation framework Programme (CIP)
with a total budget of EUR4.45M.
The MobiCloud consortium is led by Appear (Sweden) and includes Nettropolis (Germany),
EsperantoXL (the Netherlands), Costain (UK) and COMIT Projects (UK). The aim of the
project is to stimulate the provision of new mobile services in the cloud and to support
the emergence of a European ecosystem of mobile cloud application developers.
The reduction in the cost and complexity of mobile application development using cloud
technologies is a strategic objective
[http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/cloudcomputing/index_en.htm ] of the
European Commission. With MobiCloud it will become feasible for smaller companies, and not
only global ERP vendors, to quickly develop and market mobile extensions of their existing
business applications. The Commission therefore aims at enabling and facilitating faster
adoption of cloud computing throughout all sectors of the economy which can cut ICT costs,
and when combined with new digital business practices, can boost productivity, growth and
jobs.
The MobiCloud project delivers four showcase implementations addressing different
industrial applications (city transit, rail operations, interim staff management and
construction) where end-users equipped with smartphones or tablets can access a portfolio
of services stored in the cloud. MobiCloud provides a composite screen (mobile mash-up)
that aggregates data from various corporate IT systems. Depending on context (location,
role, skillset, available colleagues, etc.), the application displays different services
which react in real-time to changes (work orders, fault reports, alerts).
Analyst firm Gartner summarizes the challenges of enterprise application development
in its recent Hype Cycle for Application Development, which featured Appear (MobiCloud
project coordinator) as a selected vendor: "Many factors, including advances in cloud,
mobile, information and social technologies, change how applications can be built and the
value they can deliver to the enterprise. To keep their enterprises competitive,
application development leaders must continuously embrace new technologies and
disciplines."
Enterprises wishing to join the MobiCloud ecosystem are encouraged to sign-up for the
early adopter program where they will gain access to a MobiCloud testbed to run their own
trial projects: info@mobicloudproject.eu
Contact:
Mia Falgard
PR Manager
+46709559356
mfa@appearnetworks.com