Webalo Enables Key Software Makers Actuate and Xactly to Extend Their Applications to Handhelds - in Hours

Business Wire, May 14, 2008

Mobile Dashboard's Wizardry Brings Personalized Enterprise Data to the Mobile Workforce, with No Programming

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Webalo today announced that it has enabled two key independent software vendors (ISVs) to quickly mobilize their enterprise applications for handheld devices - without the need for classical programming and customization. Both Actuate and Xactly are this week disclosing mobile extensions to their platforms, which they are implementing using Webalo's "Mobile Dashboard."

The Mobile Dashboard offers a unique point-and-click interface that permits even non-programmers or end users to quickly set up access from the handheld of their choice to corporate data, websites, and other assets, in a matter of hours - not the months typically required. For ISVs, the Mobile Dashboard offers immediate access to the mobile enterprise market - without the need to make huge investments in mobile-specific software development - and provides a new source of revenue.

Actuate's senior vice president of marketing, Nobby Akiha, says that Webalo has allowed rapid data access to address the increasingly hot mobile Business Intelligence market. "Our experience of combining our e.Spreadsheet outputs with Webalo's Mobile Dashboard and the planned integration of Actuate iServer and BIRT with Mobile Dashboard shows that working with Webalo to bring a mobile solution to market is much faster than tackling the issue on our own. The combination of e.Spreadsheet and BIRT content with Mobile Dashboard will ensure that our customers can get content in to the hands of mobile users to increase productivity."

On-demand sales performance management vendor Xactly was similarly empowered. "We wanted our customers to have mobile access to up-to-date comparatives - planned versus actual sales, current versus targeted compensation, and so forth," said Karen Steele, vice president of marketing, Xactly. "Such mobile access really enhances the value of enterprise applications. But the economics of both the software development process and the subsequent support of a constantly-changing array of handheld devices would have been prohibitive. Webalo solved that for us."

Not Just for ISVs

The Mobile Dashboard makes it possible to extend virtually any enterprise application for mobile use. An end user or supervisor comfortable with Web interfaces and "wizards" is all the skill level required for a configuration process that typically takes less than a few hours - and on occasion only minutes. This speed and simplicity makes it suddenly affordable to transform enterprise applications for mobile use, without the need to pay proprietary vendors for mobile versions of their software - an investment that would need to be repeated for each additional vendor or application.

"The real advantage of the Mobile Dashboard," says Peter Price, Webalo's president and CEO, "is that it keeps business running. The applications that everyone relies upon at their desks or on a laptop when they're out of the office can now quickly and easily be extended to their handhelds. And those devices connect from anywhere, so action can be taken on the spot. In a very real sense, the Mobile Dashboard turns handhelds into viable enterprise computing platforms without adding costs for programming and maintenance."

This flexibility was not lost on Actuate and Xactly. "ISVs have as much or more to gain as their customers," said Price. "The rapidly growing trend by corporations of providing their employees handheld devices to free them from being attached to their desks is a powerful opportunity for ISVs. Now, they can offer mobile versions of their products or services virtually overnight."

Webalo's Mobile Dashboard can be run in hosted mode or as an appliance installed inside the enterprise, providing end-to-end capabilities without custom programming or middleware. Mobile workers can then interact with their backend applications and data, sending as well as receiving information.

For ISVs wishing to embed the Mobile Dashboard in their applications, Webalo offers both technical support, and the ability to "private label" the Mobile Dashboard.

About Webalo

Webalo technology transforms enterprise applications and data to make them compatible with mobile devices. This eliminates the need for traditional custom programming, reducing the deployment of mobile applications from weeks or months to, in most cases, less than a day. The resulting "anywhere, any time, on-demand" availability of enterprise data on handheld devices turns such devices into viable alternatives to desktop, laptop, and palmtop computer hardware, and lets mobile employees work more productively -- on the spot -- to solve problems, answer questions, monitor operations, close sales, and make informed decisions.

The Webalo Mobile Dashboard Service -- available both as a hosted service and as a behind-the-firewall appliance -- lets non-IT business administrators securely specify the content of mobile-accessible information, and the companion Webalo Proxy Server configures it, in seconds, to conform to the native user interface of any BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Palm, Symbian, or Java-enabled smartphone. Webalo's technology transforms the role of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) into a User Oriented Architecture, enabling Web services to communicate with users as effectively as they communicate with other system services.