Worklight

Worklight, founded in 2006 by Shahar Kaminitz and Yuval Tarsi, established itself as a provider of a mobile application development platform before its acquisition by IBM in 2012. Initially known as Serendipity, the company focused on enabling enterprises to create and manage mobile applications across various operating systems. The firm's core business centered on an open platform designed to streamline the delivery of mobile apps for both existing and new services to a multitude of devices, including smartphones and tablets.

Worklight's business model was geared towards enterprise clients across a range of industries such as retail, financial services, and manufacturing. It provided a comprehensive solution that addressed the complexities of the burgeoning mobile landscape by allowing organizations to develop an application once and deploy it across different platforms like Apple iOS and Google Android. This approach was particularly valuable for companies implementing "Bring Your Own Device" (BYOD) policies. Revenue was generated through licensing of its software, with models based on the number of connected devices or the number of deployed applications.

The Worklight platform offered a suite of tools for developing HTML5, hybrid, and native applications. Its key features included a mobile integrated development environment (IDE), mobile middleware for backend integration, end-to-end security, and integrated management and analytics capabilities. The platform was designed to reduce development time-to-market, cost, and complexity for its clients. A significant selling point was its ability to combine standard web technologies (HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript) with native code, offering developers flexibility without requiring proprietary tools or languages. Following its acquisition, Worklight was integrated into IBM's Software Group and became a key component of IBM's MobileFirst portfolio, enhancing IBM's capabilities in mobile application development, security, and management.

Keywords: mobile application platform, enterprise mobility, cross-platform development, HTML5 applications, hybrid applications, native applications, mobile middleware, mobile security, mobile application management, BYOD, application development tools, IBM MobileFirst, Shahar Kaminitz, Yuval Tarsi, mobile IDE, enterprise software, mobile integration, application lifecycle management, app development, smartphone applications, tablet applications