Mobile development platform Kinvey hopes to turn the fact that Google has entered its space into an advantage by making it easy for mobile developers — especially those in the enterprise space — to run their code on Google App Engine as well as its own infrastructure. Before now, developers using Kinvey to build apps — that run across all major platforms– had to run their code on Kinvey gear.
“Frankly, it was sometimes hard to convince enterprises to run on a startup’s infrastructure,” said Sravish Srhidhar, CEO of Boston-based Kinvey.
In the past, if a developer wanted to build the app on Kinvey and host the web piece, the business logic or data links on GAE, he’d have to first build the app on GAE and then manually hook it up to Kinvey. Starting in the next quarter, he will be able build on Kinvey and host on GAE or the other way around with minimal muss and fuss. Kinvey is doing the integration work, both companies will market it, and Kinvey will move its object store, by the way, from Microsoft Azure to Google App Engine.
Google announced its Mobile Backend Starter at Google I/O last month (and again this week). As Derrick Harris reported, it makes sense for Android developers and it hopes they’d rather use it rather than to Parse, which was acquired by Facebook for a reported $ 85 million.
Startups Parse, Kinvey and Stackmob all compete for mobile developers. But things are getting more complicated as bigger companies enter the fray either on their own or by alliances. Aside from the Facebook-Parse buyout and Google’s new entry , Rackspace and Salesforce.com are making moves, and Amazon Web Services allegedly eyeing its own mobile platform.
Kinvey said its offering suits developers who need to target iOS, Android and HTML 5 mobile devices and who need to build more intricate enterprise focused apps will need the advanced capabilities it provides, while Google’s platform is for simpler Android-only apps.
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