IBM (News - Alert) has announced new software and services for mobile devices that “closely mimic” desktop features formerly found only on the PC.

 

Designed for both business users and consumers, the new software includes products with business intelligence, collaboration, social networking and business performance capabilities. According to IBM, these new products build on IBM's existing mobile software offerings including IBM Cognos (News - Alert) 8 Go! Mobile.

 

IBM Rational Business Developer, IBM Rational Host Access Transformation Services (HATS), WebSphere Business Monitor are the new software products introduced.

 

With IBM Rational Business Developer, developers can create Web 2.0-style applications in IBM's newest business language, Enterprise Generation Language (EGL), to run on a mainframe or mobile devices.

 

HATS enables developers to transform green screen applications into a mobile user interface and web services allowing end-users to access mainframe applications from a mobile phone, PDA or other remote mobile device.

 

The third software introduced today, WebSphere Business Monitor, is a business activity monitoring software, allowing users to measure business process performance, monitor ongoing and completed processes, and report on business operations.

 

Built on “open standards,” IBM's software, company officials said, can be used with most mobile platforms including BlackBerry (News - Alert), iPhone, Windows Mobile, and Symbian.

 

The Company also unveiled a new business consulting services, dubbed Mobility@Work. Officials said that Mobility@Work provides a mobile work environment that allows employees to collaborate across business and geographic boundaries while providing access to applications and connections to colleagues.

 

The combination of the new software and services allows employees and executives—especially the ones who are traveling—to have an instant view of how their business is performing, either at a company-wide or a detailed business process level.

 

Also, combined with business event processing software from IBM, companies can identify patterns and establish connections between events and then initiate a trigger when a trend emerges.

 

“Utilizing software assets from IBM Research combined with our services offerings provides unique opportunities to help companies quickly adapt to the mobile environment,” commented Drew Clark, director of strategy for Venture Capital Group at IBM.

 

Currently, the Web 2.0 support for IBM Rational Business Developer is available as an IBM alphaWorks project, while WebSphere Business Monitor is available on BlackBerry devices and is expected to be available on iPhone (News - Alert) in the fourth quarter of 2008.