Palm Infocenter had a chance to interview Christian Sepulveda, VP of Business Development for Pivotal Labs about developing for webOS. Pivotal Labs is a Bay Area software development consultacy who have worked with big names including Best Buy, Twitter, and Salesforce. In the Palm CES presentation, CEO Ed Colligan named them as one of their primary partners.
Pivotal Labs does a lot of software development directly for clients, focusing on core development with clients' developers, transferring ownership of project and process. They have been working with Mojo and webOS for a few months so far, including a developer camp last thanksgiving before the CES announcement.
They are an ideal partner in a pre-release setting due to their fast pace, flexibility, and strong and reputable set of clients.
So far, Pivotal Labs has been working with other third parties to bring apps to the Pre, and an "app or two" themselves. As for the learning curve, because it's based on Mojo then there's a lot of familiarity built-in for most developers.
A lot of what's in Mojo is based on common tools and languages already available. The native applications using Javascript and HTML is noted on the developer website for Palm – those technologies are generally readily accessible to most developers anyway. So I think not only existing Palm developers but most developers will actually find it very easy to get acclimated to the platform.
As for web developers making the move, Sepulveda expects there will be some differences in programming due to writing a native application rather than a web-browser type. But most of their skills will still be applicable. If you are a Javascript and HTML5 developer, the transition will be simple, while C++ developers may need to brush up on their web technologies. But even for Mojo novices, "you can get productive quickly".
When asked about the topic of games and media players, he couldn't go into details but said webOS offers good possibilities. In comparing development styles of Symbian, Android, and iPhone,"webOS is definitely going to be at the forefront of newer thinking". Palm is more or less back in the game with their new Pre.
In closing, Sepulveda predicts that Mojo will go public around Q2, but knows very little of what Palm is planning. It's a complete platform that is perfect for their development style.
Read the full interview transcript here.
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