Wakanda Public Beta now available

Wakanda Public Beta now available

4D today announced Wakanda public beta, a free open source Rapid Application Development platform (RAD) to create business applications for the Web and mobile platforms all in HTML5 and JavaScript. Wakanda is a powerful development technology for building data centric business Internet applications. It increases developer productivity, integrates with complex enterprise environments and delivers rich and interactive experiences for users.

“With the Wakanda development platform, developers can now utilize greater technology stack integration with fully integrated framework, datastore and server.” Said Laurent Ribardiere, Wakanda creator and CTO at 4D. “Developers no longer need to pick and glue separate pieces unike for a PHP/MySQL/Apache solution.”

Solutions developed with Wakanda run consistently across operating systems and devices. As a result, developers and IT professionals have an easier path for creating rich user experiences for their enterprise applications and to integrate across their existing technologies.

Wakanda is well suited to develop data centric applications such as CRM, financial, and healthcare applications as well as many other type of departmental and enterprise applications for which data accuracy is of the ultimate importance.

Wakanda is available to anyone who wants to develop, deploy and manage database applications fast. The integrated environment is designed for professional developers working with deadlines and for businesses looking to gain a competitive advantage by delivering their applications to market faster.

"Wakanda picked our interest with its unique full stack integrated solution and only JavaScript to program the client, the database and the server." Said Ale Gicqueau CEO of Clinovo. "We are working with top pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device companies for which faster time to market, data accuracy and ease of application maintenance are key requirements. Wakanda has the potential to deliver all that."

During the public beta period, 4D will solicit Wakanda user feedback on product features and functionality, which will continue to evolve over time.

Highlights of the new version:

• A fully integrated development environment that includes editors, datastore and server. Developers no longer need to pick and glue separate pieces like for a PHP/MySQL/Apache solution

• An entire stack of technologies: client, datastore and server - programmable with only one programming language - JavaScript

• A proven NoSQL and object data engine that talks natively REST over http. Unlike poorly efficient ORM that would convert REST and language routines into SQL, Wakanda makes it easy to access data and define business logic in one place.

• A full featured WYSIWYG Graphical designer for the development of both the UI interface of the application and the data model. The interface Designer has a direct access to the data model

• A rich documentation is available to help kick start development. In addition, sample code, tips and techniques, and sample applications are provided by an active community of peer developers

• A client framework (WAF) and GUI designer to customize UI graphically with integrated rich HTML5 and CSS3 technology. No need to be an HTML5 or CSS3 expert.

• An expendable environment where widgets and server modules can be added easily. Wakanda client framework (WAF) can add custom widgets, third party widgets or even other js frameworks. The server can add commonJS/NodeJS modules.

• An increased security that can be enforced at many levels. Access to objects or attributes can be managed atomically, with scopes and User rights. In addition to SSl and TLS, Wakanda includes protection from classical Web attacks by design and natively handle others

• An open source environment allowing connections to any databases. Developers can leverage connectors developed by the community or provide their own.

• A full industry standard compliance: js, html, css, json, REST, http. The Model of the application can be accessed by any Ajax Frameworks (i.e dojo, YUI, HTMLX), Mobile native apps (i.e iOS, Android, or Servers (i.e PHP, .NET, Java, NodeJS, Python)

Free, Open Source, and Available Now

Wakanda beta is available now for free at http://www.wakanda.org. Wakanda Studio is available for Mac OS X 10.6 or above, Windows Vista or above - 1GB RAM (2GB recommended). Wakanda Server is available for Mac OS X 10.6 (64-bit) or above, Windows Vista or above/Windows Server 2008 or above, Linux Ubuntu distribution 10.4 or 10.10 or above - 1GB RAM (2GB recommended). The supported browsers are: Safari 5, Firefox 4, Chrome 11, IE 9.

About 4D, Inc.

A global leader in business software development solutions for over 25 years, 4D provides integrated platforms that simplify and speed up the development and deployment of Web, Mobile, Desktop, and Client-Server Business Applications. 4D solutions and development tools are used in more than 70 countries, count millions of end users and over 10,000 Independent Software Vendors (ISVs).