IBM released social business applications for tablets

Tablet computers are being used more and more by employees of various companies as a functional working tool. Software development companies try to keep up with the modern tendencies and offer new mobile applications that let use iPads and other modern devices for collective work, social interactions in the real time mode and business communication. The new products can boast of high productivity and compact sizes and allow users of portable devices to get a safe access to corporate communication platforms.

Some business applications will provide a mobile access to the corporate database, while another application, named LotusLive Meeting, will allow the users of modern smartphones and tablets (including iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and iPad) to take part in meetings, carried out in the global network.

For example, the IBM Corporation has announced a special business application. Thanks to the mobile client for the IBM Sametime platform, employees can exchange direct text messages in the mode of personal or group chat, while another application – Unified Telephony – can be used for making telephone calls. The optimized version of the product Lotus Symphony Viewer will provide a possibility to view office documents in the ODF format (including text files, tables and presentations) on the screen of the device.

The new applications are distributed for free among the owners of licensed copies of the IBM products. In the nearest future business software development will become more and more popular and the announced programs will be available in the official app stores, such as the Apple App Store and the Android Market.

‘Buy Full Version’ Button

According to the news from the YouNTC company, Google is planning to simplify the procedure of purchasing mobile applications for its users. First of all, it is going to change the order of purchasing full versions of applications.  At present mobile application developers work hard to produce more and more Android apps, the Android Market has a large amount of version of one and the same application and very often users have difficulties while searching and purchasing the desired full version.

Now it is announced that all the applications that are distributed on the commercial basis will have a special button ‘Buy Full Version’, which in its turn will exclude the necessity for the repeated searches in the Market Store and will save user’s time.

Google is planning to introduce this function in the nearest future and it is likely to appear simultaneously with Android 3.0.

New security system at Android Market

According to some experts, Apple pays more attention to its financial ecosystem rather than Google. At the same time the analytics from Royal Pingdom say the whole concept of Android presupposes openness and wide availability mainly of free applications.

The number of mobile applications at the Android Market is more than 10 000 and mobile application developers are going are increasing this number practically every day. Only some part of these applications is paid.

Recently the Internet has become flooded with hacking systems for paid Android mobile applications. “That’s logical when people want something but can’t buy it, they simply steal it”, say in Pingdom.

Google seems to understand it also as a few weeks ago they announced the new security system of the Android Market which provides additional security methods for paid applications. On the other hand, for expanding the payment options of the Android Market Google has entered into the negotiations with the internet auction Ebay owning the payment system PayPal.

Google starts fighting against piracy on the Android platform

Google has developed a new way of fighting against piracy in the mobile application market. Now Android apps developers will be able to suppress illegal copying of their products.

The developers who want to protect their software from illegal copying will be able to install a special module into their applications which will occasionally connect to Google servers for checking the license of each separate copy of the product (in accordance with the statistics of downloading at the Android Market store).

If the application was bought illegally, the Google module will perform the action preplanned by the authors, for example, the application can be moved to a trial mode, blocked or even deleted from the device.

The application with the built-in system of verification from Google can be installed only at official Google phones. Thus, those  who use Android modified versions won’t be able to try protected mobile applications in mobile application development.

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Android is leading at the free apps segment, Windows Mobile is dragging behind

According to analytics, more than half of Android applications at online apps stores are free, however, paid ones cost more than those for iPhone.

There are about 70,000 applications at the online store Android Market, about 57% of them are free. According to the analytical company Distimo, neither similar store can boast of the same share of free applications. That’s definitely good news for those who own an Android-based device or are going to buy new one.

In analytics’ opinion, it’s due to the technical limitations of the Android Market. Thus, only Android apps developers from 9 countries can add paid products and only the users from 13 countries can buy them whereas the sore operates in 46 countries. The additional restriction is the necessity to register at the Google Checkout service – only after this one can effect a purchase. At the biggest online apps store – Apple App Store – your account must be also linked to the iTunes Store that’s why in terms of convenience they are similar.