Gluon is now starting its third year in existence, and over the past few months, we have been focusing on getting Gluon to the next phase in its evolution. We have now completed enough of what is in store to surface and post this blog post to give a quick update. As we’ve discussed before, we have been upgrading Gluon CloudLink to become a fully functional MBaaS platform which can be managed via an intuitive dashboard application. We have also updated various parts of our website and our messaging. We are very proud that both Gluon CloudLink and the new website are now available.
From day one, the Gluon vision has been to allow Java developers to create mobile applications using their favourite language, tools, and methodologies. In our first year, we worked very hard on creating Gluon Mobile, the cross-platform mobile Java solution. With Gluon Mobile, Java developers can easily create native iOS and Android apps using a single Java codebase. These apps can be connected to backend and cloud systems, using Gluon Connect and Gluon CloudLink.
With the latest release of Gluon CloudLink, we allow much more than that. Gluon CloudLink is now a real MBaaS (Mobile Backend as a Service), and it contain lots of new functionality that allows enterprise developers to access mobile functionality, without having them to write native application code. Gluon CloudLink targets existing Java enterprise developers. Many companies and organizations already have a back-end system, and developers and architects are now faced with the request to make the back-end functionality available via mobile apps. Rather than having a separate team starting to work on the mobile app, developers can now use Gluon CloudLink to design and create mobile apps using the existing enterprise functionality. They control themselves how the existing functionality is made available.
Security and access control is key in an enterprise environment, and rather than having a myriad of mobile devices accessing functionality and data, it is much safer and more convenient to have Gluon CloudLink as the bridge between all those mobile devices and the existing enterprise infrastructure. The current release of Gluon CloudLink and the Gluon CloudLink Dashboard application already allow developers to automatically create the skeleton for a mobile application, which can then be enhanced using the developer’s favourite IDE (leveraging the Gluon Plugin) and made more attractive using Gluon Scene Builder. Much more functionality is in the pipeline, with the goal of creating, maintaining and operating mobile enterprise apps much easier for existing Java developers and architects.
While we already have lots of information for mobile developers, architects, and business leaders, we are working hard on creating more samples, tutorials, and white papers.
The release of Gluon CloudLink as an MBaaS, and the increased focus on enabling mobile enterprise applications using Java is a key moment in the history of Gluon. We are looking forward to make mobile enterprise applications using Java a big success.