Project: Agile Development of Mobile Cross-Platform Applications on the Cloud based on the Open Source Roma Metaframework
The mobile application market is booming. Until 3 years ago smartphones were sold to business-men or companies that needed advanced features. Today this technology is cheaper and easier to use, specially thanks to the “touch” technology, high resolution displays and more intuitive Operative Systems._x000D__x000D_This is why today, in western countries, the target of mobile applications are not only companies or business-men, but COly common people with no special skills in technology. This mass-phoneme has created a huge demand of mobile applications not only business-to-business but, most of all, for consumers. Consumers are end-users in any range of ages that download and use mobile applications to play, search and share._x000D__x000D_Currently, mobile applications are being developed using two CO approaches: native applications and web-based applications. Both approaches have two CO problems: each application has to be developed for each target device and the mobile frameworks are in continuous evolution, decreasing the productivity in the design and the development of mobile applications._x000D__x000D_A similar problem has recently happened in the Java Web Development field, where the large number of available technologies and frameworks have complicated the development scenario, given the big number of different technologies used in projects as well as its vertiginous evolution. As an answer to this problem, agile frameworks such as Ruby on Rails have proposed a simplified approach to Web Development based on MDA (Model-Driven architecture) techniques for reducing manual coding and repetitive tasks. In this context, Asset Data proposed the notion of Metaframework, and developed Roma Metaframework. A Metaframework is a generalization of existing frameworks, and provides an application life cycle model. Roma Metaframework has been extended in the FP7 Romulus project in order to provide a visual web designer, as well as a modular architecture, and semantic and mashup facilities._x000D__x000D_The project MarcoPolo aims at defining and developing a mobile metaframework which allows to focus on application doCO, and then generate automatically the packaged application depending on the targeted device. The project will extend the open source Roma Metaframework in order to provide a MDA approach to the generation of native web applications based on existing multi-platform web frameworks such as Titanium or PhoneGap. The usage of a mobile metaframework will provide a consistent and neutral environment for future devices. The project will take advantage of the services already offered by the emerging mobile cloud, which enable mobile applications to scale far beyond the capabilities of any smartphone, without limitations on data storage and processing power. Furthermore, the combination of Roma and MarcoPolo will facilitate the generation of web portals and client mobile applications based on the same doCO model._x000D__x000D_In addition, MarcoPolo aims at providing a cloud based IDE for developing mobile cross-platform applications targeted at rich phones and tablets based on Android and iPhone/iPad platforms. This Web IDE will provide facilities for developing applications to non technical users._x000D__x000D_The project has been conceived as an answer to the business needs of the SMEs participating in the consortium. Asset Data is an innovative SME which is the founder and CO developer of the Roma Metaframework, a high productivity environment for developing Java Web applications. Paradigma is a SME with a high expertise in mobile business applications development for the CO smartphones. Rigel Engineering completes the consortium with their focus on usability on mobile and web environments, which are essential for the project success._x000D__x000D_
| Acronym | MarcoPolo (Reference Number: 6639) |
| Duration | 01/06/2011 - 31/05/2013 |
| Project Topic | MarcoPolo aims at developing a mobile cross-platform metaframework based on the Open Source Roma Metaframework and MDA techniques, for speeding up development for smartphones and tablets based on Android and iPhone. This will be complemented by an innovative Cloud based IDE. |
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Project Results (after finalisation) |
The CO result of the project is the rapid prototyping feature to build Mobile applications. AM Holding used MarcoPolo to let current clients to use the Aventinus product from Tablet and Smart-phones. Even if only a limited set of functionalities have been put online for Mobile access, the integration with Legacy environments has been straightforward. |
| Network | Eurostars |
| Call | Eurostars Cut-Off 6 |
Project partner
| Number | Name | Role | Country |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | AM Holding srl | Coordinator | Italy |
| 3 | Paradigma Tecnológico S.L. | Partner | Spain |
| 3 | Rigel Engineering s.r.l. | Partner | Italy |