H3 Solutions Delivers SharePoint Solution for iPhone

by Jason Hall on 02/08/09 at 7:46 pm

Jason Hall is the head of Global Marketing for H3 Solutions. He is a Professional writer and Editor for iPhoneCTO.

Having the ability to access enterprise Microsoft SharePoint content on the iPhone continues to be a topic of interest for many Chief Technology Officers. Some technology executives see SharePoint access for iPhone as a key enterprise requirement. As Microsoft pointed out during the 2009 World Partner Conference in New Orleans, SharePoint is the fastest growing Office product that boasts a footprint of more than 100 million licenses. So it only makes sense that a CTO, who is considering the support of iPhones, would be interested in the capability to exploit SharePoint for online collaboration by a mobile workforce.

What users are noticing, however, is that navigating a fully rendered SharePoint site on the iPhone or any other mobile device is that it’s not useful. The Mobile Entrée(R) framework developed by H3 Solutions is hoping to answer that key requirement of technology executives.

SharePoint access for the iPhone is more than just a key requirement for H3 Solutions EVP & Co-founder Joe Herres. In fact, it’s the core focus of his business and I was able to catch up with Joe for an iPhoneCTO exclusive interview.

Joe, you’re a founder of H3 Solutions which has been described as the Industry’s first provider of a mobile application framework for SharePoint. How did the idea of a mobile application framework for Sharepoint evolve?

The idea started three years ago when smartphones were really just taking off. The initial concept was a client/server solution that only supported windows mobile devices. With advances in both SharePoint and smartphone technology, Mobile Entrée morphed into a server-side framework utilizing the mobile browser as the client delivery mechanism.

You market your mobile application framework as one that brings harmony to the various smartphone systems through SharePoint. How does the iPhone compare with other platforms?

The iPhone has the best browser on a mobile device, period.

All of the other products that offer access to SharePoint content from the iPhone have chosen the Client-Server approach. Mobile Entrée is the only Web-based SharePoint mobile application framework. Are you driving against traffic or do you know something that others don’t?

Client apps are very popular right now with the Apple App Store. The iPhone is only one of many devices in the market. Our framework allows a developer to build a single app and it will run across many platforms. This alleviates a lot of the burdens inherent with enterprise deployments of mobile applications.

This is a two-part question. How long will it take a developer to mobile-enable a SharePoint application and what opportunities does Mobile Entrée present to iPhone developers?

Mobile Entrée presents opportunity, not necessarily to iPhone developers, but to SharePoint developers. Apps are built in Visual Studio much like web parts so the learning curve for a SharePoint developer is very short. Time to develop will always vary, but I can tell you that we have done a significant amount of work to make developing mobile apps very efficient.

Security continues to be the number one concern for technology executives with regard to enterprise iPhone use. How does Mobile Entrée address security for enterprise SharePoint content?

Mobile Entrée does not do anything outside of what SharePoint does in terms of security or authentication. One issue that may arise is the ability to get access to SharePoint that is behind the firewall. There are a number of companies that provide this capability like RIM, BitKoo, and GOOD. Our focus is on the application side and would point to one of these vendors for mobile access behind the firewall.

iPhoneCTO