Appcelerator

Appcelerator

Type	Private
Industry	Software
Founded	Atlanta, Georgia (2006)
Founder	Jeff Haynie and Nolan Wright
Headquarters	San Jose, California, United States
Products	Titanium, Appcelerator Platform
Website	www.appcelerator.com

Appcelerator is a privately held mobile technology company based in San Jose, California. Its main products are Titanium, an open-source software development kit for cross-platform mobile development, and the Appcelerator Platform, a mobile engagement platform that provides cross-platform native mobile app development using JavaScript, mobile backend as a service (MBaaS), mobile test automation, crash detection and performance management, and mobile analytics.

Founded in 2006, Appcelerator serves organizations across a wide range of industries including: retail, financial services, healthcare and government.^[1][2][3] As of 2014, it had raised more than $90 million in venture capital financing.^[1]

History

Founding

Jeff Haynie and Nolan Wright met at Vocalocity, an Atlanta-based voice over IP company that Haynie had co-founded.^[4] After Haynie sold Vocalocity in 2006, the pair founded Web 2.0 application development company Hakano.^[5]

In 2007, Hakano, renamed Appcelerator, began creating an open source platform for developing rich Internet applications (RIAs).^[6] Marc Fleury, founder of JBoss, joined the company as an advisor.^[7]

Product Development

In 2008, Appcelerator relocated to Mountain View, California and later released a preview of its RIA platform, Titanium, which drew comment as a possible open source competitor to Adobe AIR.^[8][9]

Appcelerator began to focus on mobile apps in 2009. In June, it released a public beta of Titanium, which added support for Android and iOS app development to its existing web and desktop application features.^[10] Titanium 1.0 released in March 2010.^[11]

Acquisitions & Growth

Appcelerator grew quickly in 2011, increasing its employee count five-fold between October 2010 and 2011. The company’s 2011 revenue totaled $3.4 million, a 374 percent increase from 2008.^[12]

Between 2011 and 2013, Appcelerator announced a series of acquisitions, including:

• Aptana, integrated development environment (IDE) company^[13][14]
• Particle Code, HTML5 mobile gaming development platform^[15]
• Cocoafish, backend as a service^[16][17]
• Nodeable, big data analytics company^[18][19]
• Singly, API management company^[20]

Appcelerator moved to its San Jose Headquarters in 2015.

In January 2016, Appcelerator accounted that it has been acquired by Axway, a company that helps enterprises handle their data flows.^[21]

Products

Appcelerator Platform

• Appcelerator 5.2.1.GA is the latest version of the Appcelerator Platform. It includes numerous new features including support for iOS 9.1 Live Photos, Menu Popup, Apple Pencil, Storyboard Launch Files for iPad Pro, Split View and Slide Over, Swift WatchOS 2 template and Android View Transitions.^[22]
• Appcelerator Dashboard offers real-time analytics of the lifecycle and success of apps built on the Appcelerator Platform or directly via native SDK.^[23]
• Appcelerator Studio is an open extensible development environment for building, testing and publishing native apps across mobile devices and OSs including iOS, Android and BlackBerry as well as hybrid and HTML5.^[24][25]
• Appcelerator Arrow is an opinionated framework for rapidly building APIs with a scalable cloud service for running them.^[26] It allows developers to connect, model transform and optimize data for both native or web app clients.^[27] Arrow is the backbone of the Appcelerator Platform MBaaS.^[28]
• Appcelerator Insights is a native tablet app and extension of the Appcelerator Platform providing mobile-specific metrics like acquisition, engagement, retention and crash data.^[25][29] When Appcelerator announced Insights, it drew comment as a possible competitor to Google Mobile App Analytics and Flurry.^[30]
• Apple Watch SDK allows developers to embed Share Extensions and WatchKit Extensions in Titanium apps.^[28]
• AppU is a curated collection of videos and tutorials, covering cross-platform concepts, examples and code walkthroughs. Instruction topics include analytics, app development, Arrow, customer stories, events and mobile testing.^[31]

Titanium

Appcelerator Titanium is an open source framework that allows the creation of native, hybrid, or mobile web apps across platforms including iOS, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry OS, and Tizen from a single JavaScript codebase.^[32] As of February 2013, 10 percent of all smartphones worldwide ran Titanium-built apps.^[33] As of August in the same year, Titanium had amassed nearly 500,000 developer registrations.^[34]

Alloy

Alloy is an Apache-licensed model–view–controller app framework built on top of Titanium that provides a simple model for separating the app user interface, business logic and data models.^[35][36]

Apps built with Appcelerator products are written in JavaScript. Though initially developed as a Web language, JavaScript is increasingly popular for mobility due to its ability to meet the speed, scale and user experience requirements that mobile development demands.^[37][38] According to Forrester Research, JavaScript adoption is setting the stage for the “biggest shift in enterprise application development” in more than a decade.^[39]

Customers

Users of Appcelerator span industries and include Family Dollar, Homes.com, Safeguard Properties, National Military Family Association, First Utility, CACI International, Farmers Insurance Group, Avis and Zipcar.^{[2][40][41][42][43][44][45]}

Funding

In December 2008, Appcelerator closed a $4.1 million first venture round led by Storm Ventures and Larry Augustin.^[8][46] Later, in October 2010, the company announced a partnership with PayPal and that it has raised $9 million in Series B funding from investors including Sierra Ventures and eBay.^[47]

Appcelerator raised $15 million in Series C funding led by Mayfield Fund, Red Hat, and Translink Capital in November 2011, and a further $12.1 million in a round led by EDBI, the venture fund of the Singaporean government's Economic Development Board, in July 2013.^[48][49][50]

On August 25, 2014, Appcelerator announced that it had closed $22 million in Series D funding led by Rembrandt Venture Partners. Union Grove Venture Partners also participated, along with earlier backers, including Storm Ventures, Sierra Ventures, Mayfield Fund, TransLink Capital, Relay Ventures and EDB Investments.^[51] Total funding for the mobile engagement platform to date is more than $90 million.^[1]

Awards & Recognition

• 2014 Skyhigh CloudTrust™: Enterprise-Ready Rating^[52]
• 2014 Gartner Magic Quadrant: Leader in Mobile Application Development Platforms^[53]
• 2014 AlwaysOn OnDemand: Top 100 Winner^[54]
• 2014 OnMobile 100 Top Private Companies: Top 100 Winner^[55]
• 2013 Enterprise Startups To Bet Your Career On^[56]
• 2013 AlwaysOn’s OnDemand Top 100^[57]
• 2012 The Wall Street Journal: Technology Innovation Award in Software^[58]
• 2012 The Wall Street Journal: The Next Big Thing^[59]
• 2012 CRN Emerging Vendors: Top 25 Coolest Emerging Vendors^[60]
• 2012 AlwaysOn Global: Top 250 Company^[61]
• 2012 Gartner Magic Quadrant: Mobile Application Development Platform^[62]
• 2012 Red Hat Innovation Award Winner: Extensive Partner Ecosystem^[63]
• 2012 CTIA E-Tech Award Winner^[64]
• 2012 Momentum Index: 100 Open Source Companies^[65]
• 2012 MobileTrax’s Mobility Award: Mobile Software, Application Development (Consumer)^[66]
• 2012 Edison Awards Winner^[67]
• 2012 Red Herring 100 Americas^[68]
• 2012 Silicon Valley Business Journal’s Best Places to Work in the Bay Area^[69]
• 2012 Lead411’s Hottest Silicon Valley Companies^[70]
• 2012 GSMA Global Mobile Award: Best Cloud-Based Technology for Titanium Integrated Development Platform^[71]
• 2012 Dr. Dobb's Jolt Productivity Awards: Mobile Tools^[72]
• 2011 Gartner Magic Quadrant: Mobile Consumer Application Platforms^[73]
• 2011 SIIA’s CODiE Award Finalist^[74]
• 2010 Dr. Dobb's Jolt Productivity Awards: Mobile and Web Development^[75]
• 2010 Gartner Cool Vendors in Enterprise Mobility^[76]
• 2010 Inc. 5000^[77]

See also

• Appcelerator Titanium
• Mobile application development
• Javascript
• Node.js
• Mobile Backend as a service (MBaaS)
• Mobile Enterprise Application Platform (MEAP)

References

1. Schubarth, Cromwell. "Appcelerator raises $22M to help speed mobile development". Silicon Valley Business Journal. American City Business Journals.
2. Ravindranath, Mohana. "Arlington contractor CACI teams up with California firm to build mobile apps". The Washington Post.
3. O'Donnell, Jake. "New MBaaS tool connects mobile apps to back-end services". TechTarget.
4. Foley, John. "Startup Of The Week: Appcelerator Promises Faster RIA Development". InformationWeek.
5. "Best Places to Work Finalists Revealed". San Francisco Business Times.
6. "TechJournal Atlanta’s Hakano now Appcelerator, changes strategy". Tech Journal.
7. Blankenhorn, Dana. "Fleury's back and SOA's got him". ZDNet.
8. Ha, Anthony. "Appcelerator launches open source platform for desktop apps". VentureBeat.
9. Rosenberg, Dave. "Monetizing open source and killing Adobe AIR". CNET.
10. Krill, Paul. "Appcelerator enables iPhone, Android app dev". InfoWorld.
11. Perez, Sarah. "Titanium 1.0 Launches: Build Native Apps for Desktop, Mobile & iPad". ReadWrite.
12. "Inc. 500 Company Profile: Appcelerator". Inc.
13. Paul, Ryan. "Appcelerator buys Aptana, strengthens Titanium mobile dev solution". Ars Technica.
14. Taft, Darryl. "Appcelerator Releases Titanium Studio IDE for Mobile, Desktop and Web Development". eWeek.
15. Taft, Darryl. "Appcelerator Bolsters Mobile HTML5 Expertise With Particle Code Acquisition". eWeek.
16. O’Dell, J. "Fueled by mobile madness, Appcelerator acquires Cocoafish". VentureBeat.
17. Perez, Sarah. "Appcelerator Acquires Mobile Cloud Services Startup Cocoafish". TechCrunch.
18. Hesseldahl, Arik. "Appcelerator acquires Nodeable, boosts big data". AllThingsD.
19. Perez, Sarah. "Appcelerator Acquires Nodeable, Makers Of Real-Time Big Data Processing Tool StreamReduce". TechCrunch.
20. "Why did Appcelerator buy Singly? Because it wants to be the next Oracle Devindra Hardawar". VentureBeat.
21. Lardinois, Frederic. "Axway Acquires Mobile App Development Platform Appcelerator". TechCrunch.
22. Zandbergen, Fokke. "GA Release of CLI 5.2.1, Titanium 5.2.1 and Studio 4.5".
23. Lardinois, Frederic. "Appcelerator Makes Its Platform More Flexible With Native SDK Support, API Builder And Updated Analytics". TechCrunch.
24. "Appcelerator Studio". Appcelerator.
25. Heller, Martin. "Review: Appcelerator is a mobile cloud platform in progress". InfoWorld.
26. Nicastro, Dom. "Appcelerator Eyes Big Fish in Mobile App Dev Space". CMSWire.
27. O'Donnell, Jake. "New MBaaS tool connects mobile apps to back-end services". SearchConsumerization. TechTarget.
28. Preimesberger, Chris. "Appcelerator Platform Now Can Build APIs for Apple Watch". eWeek.
29. "Appcelerator Insights - Analytics". Appcelerator.
30. De Simone, Sergio. "Appcelerator Announces Insights for Tracking Mobile Apps Lifecycle". InfoQ.
31. Davenport, Scott. "What’s this App U Thing All About?". Appcelerator Blog. Appcelerator.
32. "Titanium". Appcelerator.org.
33. Bort, Julie. "Microsoft Might Buy A Startup That Powers 10 Percent Of The World's Smartphones". Business Insider.
34. Hardawar, Devindra. "Why did Appcelerator buy Singly? Because it wants to be the next Oracle". VentureBeat.
35. Alcocer, Ricardo. "Top 10 tips for building better mobile apps". InfoWorld.
36. Waters, John. "Appcelerator Updates Mobile Dev Platform, Partners with Tester SOASTA". Application Development Trends Magazine.
37. Wright, Nolan. "Why JavaScript Will Become The Dominant Programming Language Of The Enterprise". ReadWrite.
38. Wilcox, Mark. "Why JavaScript will win on mobile". Developer Economics.
39. Facemire, Michael. "The Dawn Of Enterprise JavaScript". Forrester.
40. Boulton, Clint. "Family Dollar’s Apple Device Move Brings App Development Challenge". CIO Journal. Wall Street Journal.
41. Murphy, Chris. "Mobile App Dev: 4 Insights From The Trenches". InformationWeek.
42. "George Mehok on Implementing Mobile Appcelerator and SOASTA". Safeguard Properties.
43. "New Online App Launched to Aid America’s Military Families". MilitaryFamily.org. National Military Family Association.
44. Greengard, Sam. "First Utility Taps Into the Power of Mobile Tech". Baseline Magazine.
45. Clancy, Heather. "Why Family Dollar prioritized mobile apps for employees, not shoppers". Fortune.
46. Hendrickson, Mark. "Appcelerator Raises $4.1 Million for Open Source RIA Platform". TechCrunch.
47. Warren, Christina. "Appcelerator and PayPal Team Up for Mobile Commerce". Mashable.
48. Perez, Sarah. "Appcelerator Raises $15 Million Series C Round". TechCrunch.
49. Ong, Josh. "Appcelerator picks up $12.1M to grow its mobile enterprise platform and open Asia HQ in Singapore". The Next Web.
50. Cutler, Kim-Mai. "Appcelerator Raises $12.1M To Expand Into Asia And Help Enterprises Build The Best Apps". TechCrunch.
51. Kolodny, Lora. "Appcelerator Raises $22M Series D to Help Businesses Make More From Their Mobile Apps". Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
52. "Skyhigh CloudTrust™ Program Establishes Industry’s Most Objective and Comprehensive Security Assessment for Cloud Services". Skyhigh Networks.
53. "Magic Quadrant for Mobile Application Development Platforms". Gartner. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
54. "The 2014 OnDemand 100 Top Private Companies". AlwaysOn ALPHA. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
55. "The 2014 OnMobile 100 Top Private Companies". AlwaysOn. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
56. Bort, Julie. "25 Enterprise Startups To Bet Your Career On". Business Insider.
57. "2013 OnDemand 100 Top Private Companies". AlwaysOn ALPHA.
58. "Appcelerator Wins Software Category". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
59. "Looking for the ‘Next Big Thing’? Ranking the Top 50 Start-Ups". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
60. "Emerging Vendors 2012: Software Vendors". CRN. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
61. "Announcing the 2012 AlwaysOn Global 250 Top Private Companies". AlwaysON Alpha. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
62. "Magic Quadrant for Mobile Application Development Platforms". Gartner.
63. "Red Hat Innovation Award Winners". Red Hat.
64. "CTIA Announces 2012 E-Tech Awards Finalists". CTIA.
65. "Appcelerator Winning Streak Continues With Honors From OnMobile and Momentum Index". Reuters.
66. "MobileTrax Announces the 2012 Mobility Award Winners". Mobility Wire.
67. "2012 Edison Award Winners".
68. "2012 Red Herring North America: Finalists". Red Herring. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
69. "Best Places to Work Finalists Revealed". Silicon Valley Business Journal.
70. "Lead411 Launches "Hottest Companies in Silicon Valley" Awards"". Lead411.
71. "Winners 2012". Global Mobile Awards. GSMA.
72. "2012 Jolt Awards: Mobile Tools". Dr. Dobb's.
73. "Magic Quadrant for Mobile Consumer Application Platforms". Gartner.
74. "2011 CODiE Award Winners". Software & Information Industry Association.
75. Michael, Yuan. "Jolt Productivity Awards: Mobile and Web Development #2". Dr. Dobb's.
76. "Cool Vendors in Enterprise Mobility, 2010". Gartner.
77. "Appcelerator - Mountain View, CA". Inc.

Bibliography

• Brousseau, Christian (October 25, 2013). Creating Mobile Apps with Appcelerator Titanium (1st ed.). Packt Publishing. p. 318. ISBN 978-1-84951-926-7.
• Bahrenburg, Benjamin (June 25, 2013). Appcelerator Titanium Business Application Development Cookbook (1st ed.). Packt Publishing. p. 328. ISBN 978-1-84969-534-3.
• Ward, Trevor (October 2012). Augmented Reality using Appcelerator Titanium Starter (1st ed.). Packt Publishing. p. 52. ISBN 978-1-84969-390-5.
• Martin, Terry (April 24, 2012). Building iPhone Applications with Titanium (1st ed.). Wiley. p. 352. ISBN 978-0-470-66083-6.
• Pollentine, Boydlee; Ward, Trevor (February 2012). Appcelerator Titanium: Patterns and Best Practices (1st ed.). Packt Publishing. p. 110. ISBN 978-1-84969-348-6.
• Pollentine, Boydlee (December 16, 2011). Appcelerator Titanium Smartphone App Development Cookbook (1st ed.). Packt Publishing. p. 308. ISBN 978-1-84951-396-8.

External links

• Official web site
• Appcelerator's open-source code on GitHub
• Learning Titanium
• TideSDK, formerly Titanium Desktop