(http://readwrite.com/files/styles/800_450sc/public/fields/shutterstock_nuts_apps.jpg) Google wants to make it extremely easy for developers to use its cloud to build mobile applications. Today, it has a new partner to entice developers to do just that.
Google has partnered with Boston-based mobile cloud services company Kinvey (http://googlecloudplatform.blogspot.com/2013/06/bridging-mobile-backend-as-a-service-kinvey.html) to easily connect mobile applications to its Google App Engine cloud. The partnership is specifically targeted at enterprise developers who tend to require a lot of support, consume a lot of data and need simple solutions to create and support cloud infrastructure for their mobile devices.
"Developers using Kinvey can deploy directly from Kinvey (http://www.kinvey.com/) into App Engine. The reciprocal also holds true. Developers using App Engine can consume Kinvey's services using the libraries we've built for App Engine," said Joe Chernov, VP of Marketing at Kinvey.
The announcement comes two days after Google announced a "Mobile Backend Starter (http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2013/06/bootstrap-your-apps-cloud-services-with.html)" for tying Android apps to Google App Engine. The partnership between Google and Kinvey will expand on the fairly simple starter package and also allow developers building iOS and HTML5 apps to tie their cloud infrastructure to App Engine.
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Enticing Developers With The Cloud If you are looking to build a mobile application with rich cloud functionality, you have a few options. You could build it yourself by selecting and configuring a technology stack; writing all the code and connecting the application programming interfaces and then deploy it and secure it. Good luck finding a developer who knows how to do all of that and doesn't cost an arm and a leg.
Or, you could have a fairly simple automated process do it all for you.
That is the opportunity that several startup companies saw a couple years ago. StackMob, Parse, Appcelerator, Kinvey, Applicasa, FeedHenry and a variety of others moved quickly to serve this need, which has been termed "Backend as a Service" (BaaS) in the developer world. It didn't take long for the large cloud providers and mobile platform owners (like Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Facebook) to realize that they needed to offer this type of service and each have moved aggressively to build their own capabilities, partner with the startups providing these solutions or straight-up acquire the companies making them.
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The basic thought from the ecosystem owners is, "we'll make it easy for you to build cloud infrastructure if you build for our platforms." That is one of the prime reasons that Facebook bought Parse (http://readwrite.com/2013/04/29/parse-acquisition-makes-its-rivals-very-happy) earlier this year, to bring brands to Facebook's app ecosystem. Microsoft has Azure Mobile Services, which is essentially its own BaaS offering. It is why Google is partnering with Kinvey, to bring enterprises to both Android as well as App Engine.
The Maturation of Kinvey Kinvey started as three guys from Austin, Texas with an idea to make it easier for developers to build cloud infrastructure for their apps. Kinvey got its wings as a participant in the TechStars Boston 2011 class and has been growing since.
Kinvey's technology stack (http://readwrite.com/2012/04/17/mobile-backend-as-a-service-ec) has grown in the last two years to the point where it would be economically difficult for any company to build from scratch.
"To build your own back-end stack, you'd probably need a year and a million dollars," said Kinvey CEO Sravish Sridhar in a recent discussion.
Kinvey has moved aggressively to fill out that stack with partnerships (such as with push message service Urban AirShip (http://readwrite.com/2011/12/08/urban-airship-teams-with-kinve), media cloud provider Brightcove and now Google) and has become a leader in helping developers solve problems with its helpful content marketing campaign.
Kinvey may be a champion of developers, but it also knows where the money is. Since leaving TechStars, Kinvey has made a push to become the cloud integrator for enterprises (http://readwrite.com/2012/07/11/bringing-enterprise-data-to-your-mobile-workers) looking to scale mobile applications. The App Engine partnership with Google and its status as preferred technology partner with Facebook should help accelerate this growth.
Lead image courtesy Shutterstock (http://www.shutterstock.com/).
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