Alliance results in a comprehensive line of mobile-enabled SharePoint applications, beginning with Project Management

October 13, 2009, 7:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Bamboo^® Solutions, a Microsoft Gold-Certified Partner and leading provider of technologies that enhance Microsoft^® SharePoint^® and H3 Solutions, provider of the innovative new mobile application development framework, Mobile Entrée, have announced a strategic partnership formed to accelerate the development of mobile applications for SharePoint. Together, the companies will bring to market a comprehensive new line of mobile-enabled, business productivity solutions built on SharePoint. Bamboo & H3 Solutions will unveil the first jointly developed mobile application at the Microsoft SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, October 19 – 22, 2009.

Under the terms of the agreement, H3 Solutions will extend access to its unique mobile application development framework for SharePoint to Bamboo. Bamboo will standardize the development of mobile applications for SharePoint on the Mobile Entrée platform. This first application is a mobile interface for Bamboo’s popular SharePoint Project Management Central (PM Central™), a comprehensive solution for project management. PM Central Mobile will provide remote access to project managers and project team members, enabling mobile updates to task status, resource assignments, and project schedules. Mobile Entrée elegantly leverages SharePoint’s personalization capabilities to present an interface that is optimized not just for mobile access, but for the role of the individual accessing the application. Using the Isolate & Target™ approach, project managers are presented with capabilities specific to their function, individual team members or project stakeholders will view controls and displays targeted for their use.

“We are proud to announce Bamboo Solutions as the first major SharePoint technology provider to adopt the Mobile Entrée platform,” says Mike Herres, CEO of H3 Solutions. “Bamboo’s comprehensive portfolio of packaged solutions for SharePoint represents a vast range of capabilities that work extremely well in a mobile context.”

“Mobile Entrée provides Bamboo with an elegant and cost-efficient means of extending our SharePoint-based solutions to the mobile SharePoint end-user, whether they are using an iPhone, Blackberry or Windows Phone,” says Mike Tanner, CEO of Bamboo Solutions. “People are going to be surprised by what a great platform this is for developing mobile applications for the enterprise, once they are equipped with Mobile Entrée.”

Leveraging the Mobile Entrée platform, Bamboo will develop mobile interfaces for the more than 60 essential solutions and add-ons Bamboo has developed for SharePoint. The Mobile Entrée platform allows developers to create interfaces for SharePoint applications that are highly optimized for a mobile context. Even more importantly, applications built on Mobile Entrée provide support for users of virtually any smartphone platform, including iPhone, Blackberry, Windows Phone, Symbian, Palm Pre, and more. End-users using a variety of different devices can all seamlessly access the same application. Cross-device compatibility is managed entirely by the Mobile Entrée platform and is fully abstracted from the development of the core application.

Bamboo will continue to roll out mobile interfaces for its popular line of SharePoint add-ons throughout 2009 and into 2010. Leveraging the Mobile Entrée platform, Bamboo will develop new “mobile-only” SharePoint applications targeting functionality such as mobile sales force automation, help desk, and document management throughout 2010.

In addition to the Bamboo Mobile Offerings, Mobile Entrée is also commercially available as Mobile Entrée Basic and Mobile Entrée Enterprise. Mobile Entrée Basic License gives you out-of-the-box mobile access to lists, document libraries, discussions, and searches. Basic will not load in any custom applications built using the API. The Mobile Entrée Enterprise License gives you the same basic functionality as the basic offering, plus the ability to create unlimited mobile applications within its framework.

PM Central Mobile will be commercially available on October 19th, the first day of the Microsoft SharePoint Conference. For more information, please visit https://bamboosolutions.com.