Version 1.0 leverages lessons learned from tens of thousands of mobile application beta users

TORONTO, ONT. – February 2, 2009 – After completing six months of successful beta testing which included downloads of tens of thousands of Breeze-built mobile applications, Cascada Mobile (www.cascadamobile.com) announced today the commercial launch of Breeze, the company’s mobile application development platform.  Cascada’s Breeze Platform provides anyone with knowledge of even the most basic Web programming languages the easiest method for creating, testing and distributing mobile applications built in J2ME – the mobile version of the Java programming language – to phones anywhere in the world.  There are an estimated 3 billion feature phones in the world that run Java mobile applications.

During the beta, individual developers and businesses used Breeze to create new mobile applications for a vast array of phones, ranging from lower-end feature phones, up through powerful smartphones.  Even mobile service providers and mobile software vendors are utilizing Breeze to extend the reach of their existing applications to new platforms.

“The Breeze beta was leveraged by application developers serving the smartphone market to build versions of their mobile applications for the feature phone market,” said Cascada CEO, Alan Lysne. “Using Breeze, these developers were able to grow the appeal of their services beyond BlackBerry and iPhone users and effectively increased their addressable market potential by billions of people.”

For its commercial release, Cascada added new features to Breeze, including support for location based services and support for touch screen devices such as the BlackBerry Storm and Samsung Instinct.  Cascada also doubled the number of supported devices for Breeze since the start of the beta, and can now automatically build, port and distribute applications for hundreds of different handset makes and models.

Mobile Application Development doesn’t have to be complex
Unlike the “write once, run anywhere” world of Web programming, where a single set of code can work universally on any computer, operating system and Web browser, mobile application development is fraught with complexities.  Mobile phones can have different screen sizes, button and keyboard configurations, and other features that impact how a mobile application runs.  Despite the fact that Java is supported on billions of phones in the market today, an application that runs on one phone may not work on hundreds of other phone models, even if those phones are similar in design or come from the same manufacturer.  Cascada Mobile’s Breeze Platform eliminates these and myriad other development complexities.

Breeze takes code written in HTML, JavaScript and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and automatically converts it into Java code.  As a result, any Breeze created application can run on hundreds of different mobile phone types without the need to create multiple device-specific custom builds. Developers receive a simple line of code they can put on their websites, blogs or social network pages allowing people to download the application merely by entering their mobile number.  Breeze also takes care of distribution via SMS, WAP Push and direct download from a mobile phone, ensuring the right version of the application is sent to each end user’s phone.  Developers can also opt to add their applications to BreezeApps.com, Cascada’s free mobile application portal.

Breeze enables Web programmers unaccustomed to mobile development to add important functions that don’t exist on the Web, such as using the phone’s built-in camera, accessing the contact list and using the location capabilities of the phone.

To ensure that an application works on all handset makes and models, it must be tested.  The daunting task of testing applications on hundreds of different phones puts mobile development out of reach for a great many developers.  Beyond the testing, global application distribution requires dealing with more than 100 different wireless carriers and network operators. Breeze reduces the testing of mobile applications for hundreds of different handsets down to a single run on the Breeze Simulator.

Get started developing mobile applications today
Breeze is free for any developer or programmer to use to create and distribute their mobile applications. Options are available for developers who wish to pay for their use of Breeze in order to offer ad-free applications to end users and take advantage of even more features.  Cascada’s Developer guide, dev.cascadamobile.com/devguide, provides developers a comprehensive set of online manuals, tutorials and samples.

About Cascada Mobile
Cascada Mobile offers the simplest method for creating and distributing mobile applications for the more than 3 billion mobile phones in use around the world. Cascada Mobile’s Breeze platform eliminates the enormous complexities of writing mobile applications in J2ME – the most widely used mobile platform, and provides a one-stop-shop for mobilizing applications to run on hundreds of different handset models and distributing them across wireless operators worldwide. Using basic HTML and JavaScript, any Web savvy individual can create rich J2ME applications though Breeze.  For more information on Cascada Mobile and the Breeze Platform please visit www.cascadamobile.com.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 2nd, 2009 at 8:00 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.