1. Comparing KidoZen
and IBM Worklight
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KidoZen vs. Competitors: Comparing
KidoZen and IBM Worklight
This paper is part of a series of articles that compare KidoZen with traditional enterprise mobile
application platforms. These papers are intended to help organizations make an informed decision
when evaluating KidoZen against some of the existing enterprise mobile solutions in the current
market.
KidoZen
KidoZen is the market first enterprise mobility platform delivered completely in a platform as a
service model. KidoZen provides organizations with the backend infrastructure, programing
frameworks and tools that enable the development, distribution and management of enterprise
mobile applications.
More concretely, KidoZen provides a backend as a service infrastructure that enables developers to
incorporate and manage backend capabilities to their enterprise mobile application in a matter of
minutes. Additionally, KidoZen provides an enterprise application center that enables organizations
to distribute and manage enterprise mobile applications. Conceptually, you can think of KidoZen as
four fundamental components:
Enterprise Mobile Backend as a Service API: KidoZen provides a diverse set of services
that automate some of the most important backend features in enterprise mobile
applications. KidoZen provides a simple, interoperable, multi-tenant service platform that
provides enterprise mobile capacities such as authentication, storage, integration, logging,
messaging and many others. Developers can immediately use these capabilities through our
different SDKs without the need of any on-premise infrastructure setup.
Mobile SDKs: KizoZen provides a series of SDKs to make it extremely simple to add
backend capabilities to your enterprise mobile applications using a very simple syntax. Our
SDKs include platforms such as iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Windows 8, PhoneGap and
other emerging mobile development technologies.
Mobile Enterprise Application Center: KidoZen’s application center provides a secure
and robust mechanism to distribute and manage your enterprise mobile applications. Using
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KidoZen’s application center users can launch the applications that are available to them
based on their corporate permissions. In addition to the application distribution frontend,
KidoZen’s application center provides IT professionals with rich analytics and management
capabilities in order to efficiently operate an enterprise mobile infrastructure.
Hosted HTML5: To provide a complete development experience, KidoZen allows
organizations to securely deploy and host their mobile web, HTML5 based applications to
their private instance of the KidoZen cloud. Using this mechanism, organizations can avoid
the headaches of trying to provision and manage mobile web applications inside their
corporate environments.
IBM Worklight Overview
The IBM Worklight platform is the cornerstone of IBM’s enterprise mobility strategy and one of the
technologies that are typically considered by organizations in order to implement enterprise mobile
solutions. Acquired by IBM in 2011, the Worklight platform follows the traditional model pioneered
by BlackBerry years ago based on an on-premise enterprise mobile server and a number of
proprietary development tools. Similar to other enterprise mobility platforms, one of the hallmarks
of the Worklight model is the ability to implement multi-platform applications from a single code
base.
From an architecture standpoint the Worklight platform is comprised of four fundamental
components:
Worklight Studio: This Eclipse-based IDE is the main vehicle to implement applications in
the Worklight platform. As a development tool, IBM Worklight essentially extends eclipse
with a plug-in model that allows mobile developers to leverage the capabilities of the
Worklight platform. Using Worklight Studio, developers can use visual designers to author
the user interface of their applications and compile applications to the different mobile
platforms. Additionally, Worklight Studio offers layers of interoperability with the native
capabilities of the various mobile runtimes.
Worklight Server: This component is a Java based server that serves as a gateway between
mobile applications and services in the enterprise. Among its capabilities, Worklight Server
provides integration with enterprise systems at the protocol level supporting well known
industry protocols such as SOAP, LDAP, SQL, etc. However the latest versions of
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Worklight are relying on other IBM products such as Cast Iron to provide a more complete
integration to line of business systems.
Worklight Application Center: This product of the Worklight platform provides a
collaborative environment to facilitate the testing of mobile applications. From the
infrastructure perspective, this component is another server side infrastructure in addition to
what’s required by Worklight Server.
Worklight Console: This component of the Worklight platform is a web –based user
interface that enables the management and administration of Worklight Server as well as the
apps deployed on it.
Comparing KidoZen and IBM Worklight
KidoZen and IBM Worklight take two fundamentally different approaches to provide an enterprise
mobile infrastructure for organizations. In some sense, KidoZen was born to try to address some of
the limitation of platforms like IBM Worklight by providing a simpler, more open, affordable and
scalable enterprise mobile platform. Marketing aside, when evaluating KidoZen in comparison to
the IBM Worklight platform there are a few aspects that should be considered:
Development Process
IBM Worklight: Worklight applications are required to be implemented using the
Worklight Studio. This IDE is the only development tool that provides integration with the
Worklight Server and additional tools. Consequently, organizations embracing IBM
Worklight need to consider the time required to train the development and IT resources in
the IBM Worklight Studio, related tools and development process.
KidoZen: KidoZen focuses on the backend aspects of enterprise mobile applications
providing a tool and framework agnostic model that allows developers to leverage the IDEs,
frameworks or tools of their preference when implementing enterprise mobile applications.
Backend Capabilities
IBM Worklight: The IBM Worklight platform supports a series of well-established
protocols such as SOAP, REST, SQL as the main vehicle to integrate with line of business
systems. Typically, organizations need to implement additional levels of integration either in
Worklight Server or externally to provide an end to end experience that allows mobile
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applications to communicate with line of business systems. When more sophisticated
business processes or workflows are needed, Worklight will rely on IBM Cast Iron as the
main integration gateway to implement those integration patterns.
KidoZen: KidoZen provides a backend as a service infrastructure that includes APIs for
dozens of enterprise mobile backend capabilities. By leveraging these APIs or our mobile
SDKs, developers can incorporate infrastructure capabilities or integrate with enterprise
systems in a very easy manner. KidoZen mobile backend APIs can be consumed from any
programming language or framework which facilitates the KidoZen integration with
traditional IT systems.
Required Infrastructure
IBM Worklight: Delivered as traditional on-premise software, IBM Worklight requires
organizations to invest in the necessary hardware to deploy and configure the Worklight
Server and Application Center infrastructures. Additionally, organizations typically need to
train their developers in the management and maintenance of Worklight’s server side
infrastructure.
KidoZen: KidoZen is completely delivered as a platform as a service model which requires
no infrastructure on the customer’s premises. In this model, organizations can start building
enterprise mobile applications using any mobile development tools or frameworks by simply
provisioning a KidoZen account. Complimentary, KidoZen can also be delivered as an on-
premise solution with a very small infrastructure footprint.
Platforms Supported
IBM Worklight: Worklight provides support for all major mobile platforms via the
Worklight Studio IDE.
KidoZen: KidoZen provides SDKs for several development platforms including iOS,
Android, Windows Phone, Windows 8, JavaScript and PhoneGap. Additionally, KidoZen’s
SDKs interoperate with all major programming languages and frameworks.
Management Experience
IBM Worklight: The IBM Worklight Console provides a portal experience that enables the
management and operational monitoring of the different components of the platform such
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as Worklight Server, connectors and the different applications deployed in the Worklight
instance.
KidoZen: KidoZen offers an enterprise mobile application center that enables the
provisioning of mobile application in the enterprise as well as the management of the
backend capabilities of those applications. The application center includes experiences for
both mobile and tablet devices.
Professional Services
IBM Worklight: Given the complexity of its infrastructure, IBM Worklight
implementations typically include professional services and training. Typically, these services
are provided by IBM Global Services’ professionals or partner companies. In terms of the
training programs, organizations typically require training for both developers as well as IT
professional on the implementation and management tools and experience of applications
running on the Worklight platform.
KidoZen: KidoZen provides a simple, open and highly interoperable infrastructure that
allows any organization to implement enterprise mobile applications without the need of
professional services or training. More importantly, KidoZen offers a tool agnostic model
that allows organizations to leverage their preferred mobile application development tools or
frameworks and leverage KidoZen’s SDKs to enable the backend capabilities or those
applications.
Pricing
IBM Worklight: Depending of the size of the deployment topology, IBM Worklight prices
typically range on the six or seven figures product license and the added cost of the required
professional services and training. The software is delivered in a traditional on-premise
model and subsequent upgrades will be added to the initial price over time.
KidoZen: KidoZen is priced in a subscription based model that typically ranges between
hundreds or low thousands dollar monthly subscription depending on the size of the
customer enterprise mobile infrastructure. KidoZen’s price typically takes into consideration
three fundamental factors: number of users, number of API calls and infrastructure
consumed by the customer’s enterprise mobility solution.
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Conclusion
IBM Worklight and KidoZen are two of the leading platforms in the current enterprise mobility
market. Currently, IBM delivers the Worklight platform in a traditional on-premise model that
requires hardware and software infrastructure, professional services, training and a high entry cost
both technologically and financially. To address the limitations of platforms like Worklight,
KidoZen offers a complete platform as a service model that leverages the technologic and economic
benefits of cloud infrastructure to help organizations implement enterprise mobile applications in an
agile, simple and cost-effective way.
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About the Author
Jesus Rodriguez is a co-founder and CEO of both Tellago Studios and
Tellago, two fast growing start-ups with a unique vision around software
technology. Jesus spends his days working on the technology and strategic
vision of both companies. Under his leadership, Tellago and Tellago
Studios have been recognized as an innovator in the areas of enterprise
software and solutions achieving important awards like the Stevie Awards’
American and International Business Awards.
A software scientist by background, Jesus is an internationally recognized speaker and author
with contributions that include hundreds of articles and sessions at industry conferences. Jesus
serves as an advisor to several software companies such as Microsoft and Oracle, and is the only
person who currently holds both the Microsoft MVP and Oracle ACE technology awards. Jesus
is a prolific blogger on all subjects related to software technology and entrepreneurship. You can
gain valuable insight on business and software technology through his blogs at
http://jrodthoughts.com and http://weblogs.asp.net/gsusx .