Funambol
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Funambol is an American corporation that earns revenue from its dual-licensing business model that includes commercial software and free open source software. Both software editions are based on a free and open source mobile synchronization server that provides push email, address book and calendar (PIM) data synchronization, and device management for wireless devices, leveraging standard protocols such as SyncML. For users, this means BlackBerry-like capabilities on commodity handsets.
Funambol is also a development platform for mobile applications. It provides C++ and Java client APIs and server side Java APIs, and facilitates the development, deployment and management of any mobile project.
The Funambol project was started in 2001 by developers because of the lack of an open source Java implementation. The Funambol project has gone beyond the original server engine, and now includes administration tools and client-side APIs. Funambol has been downloaded more than one million times, making the Funambol project one of the largest mobile developer communities in the world. Funambol is in production use on five continents and supports millions of end users. The project won Linux World Editor's Choice 2006 Award and Gold Star awards from Mobile Village readers for consumer push email and PIM solutions.
Funambol consists of several components, including:
- Funambol Data Synchronization Server: a mobile application server providing synchronization services for wireless clients and PCs, including push email.
- Funambol Device Management: an OMA DM server to remotely manage mobile devices.
- Funambol Connectors: gateways to file systems, databases, email systems, and applications for two-way synchronization with existing data assets.
- Funambol Client Plug-ins: protocol extenders and clients for Microsoft Office Outlook, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Palm and iPod and iPhone so users can synchronize their email messages and PIM data (address book, calendar, tasks and notes) with the server.
- Funambol Software Development Kit: tools to develop sometimes-connected mobile applications on devices (in Java - J2SE and J2ME - and C++) and to add data sources to the server.
