IBM Enhances Eclipse-based Tools for Mobile Access to Enterprise Applications

SOMERS, N.Y. - IBM announced the availability of three new pervasive computing technologies for download via its alphaWorks emerging technology Web site. The new software solutions - IBM Voice Toolkit, Forms for Mobile Devices and Multimodal Toolkit Plus - allow companies access to enterprise applications via wireless data devices.

The Voice Toolkit Preview now offers developers the IBM Software Development Platform with voice application development capabilities. It provides an integrated development environment, enhanced Natural Language Understanding tools, support for VoiceXML and the new Open Source Reusable Dialog components.

The second offering, Multimodal Tools Plus, is an Eclipse-based tool designed to speed the development of browser-based applications on embedded devices requiring visual and speech interaction. This software tools package, which leverages the IBM Embedded ViaVoice speech engine and the XHTML+Voice (X+V) multimodal specification, provides an interface for writing and testing voice-enabled Web applications on the desktop prior to deployment on handheld devices.

Finally, IBM Forms for Mobile Devices is a Java-based distributed software solution comprised of a set of Eclipse-based wizards. It enables developers to create applications for accessing, and completing business forms, such as an expense approval sheet, stored locally on mobile devices.  When a mobile device user completes and submits a form, it is queued for delivery to the server for when connectivity is available. When the server receives a completed form, it dispatches it to the back-end application for final processing.