OStatic

Today, Funambol, a provider of open source push and mobile sync software, officially introduced the next generation of its MobileWe platform. Funambol's v8 MobileWe software looks a bit different from its predecessors, and with good reason. This release sports a new AJAX web portal and integrates some very visual features.

The new portal was designed to better facilitate syncing PIM (contact and calendar) data, email and multimedia files between mobile devices, the internet, and desktop computers. Those who are familiar with Funambol's software likely picked up on the other new feature from that last sentence: The v8 MobileWe software supports image syncing between devices.

As more applications move to the cloud, it's not surprising that developers are spending a lot of time working on ways to provide mobile access to the cloud. To create applications and services for handheld devices like the iPhone and Android-based G1, they use tools like Volantis' Open Source Mobility Server, a java-based development and runtime platform.

Volantis Systems released version 5.1 of GPLv3-licensed Volantis Mobility Server (VMS) Community Edition this week. It has connectors that integrate with many popular Web sites including Picasa, Flickr, and Google Docs, with more expected to be added in future releases. The new version is optimized for the iPhone and also includes tools to create mash-up mobile applications. When looking at the future of VMS, Dave Roberts, Manager, Business Development, says thanks to the open source community, the sky's the limit.