KidoZen Finds Right Fit With Enterprise Backend That Connects To Developer Platforms

A number of companies are building robust mobile platform as a service offerings. But few are building both a platform and a mobile backend as a service like that from KidoZen, an enterprise mobile PaaS that recently raised $5 million from Third Point Ventures.

The service allows a company to develop mobile applications that connect to backend systems like SAP, SharePoint or Citrix ShareFile systems, as well as services like Salesforce or Google Apps. The service also provides access to many mobile-first enterprise infrastructure capabilities, including identity federation, logging and monitoring. Additionally KidoZen offers an enterprise app store that allows IT professionals to manage the backend infrastructure of their enterprise mobile applications.

At KidoZen’s core is a mobile middleware technology that integrates the backend with identity federation, logging and configuration management tools. Available as a purely cloud-delivery model, a hybrid cloud model and fully on-premise, the middleware tech allows IT professionals to leverage the management, security and compliance tools provided by KidoZen that manage the mobile app lifecycle.

KidoZen’s enterprise mobile backend as a service (MBaaS) is part of its overall platform, which includes other technologies such as the enterprise app center, HTML5 hosting infrastructure and mobile data management, etc. The company has also added app-monitoring capabilities along with system and data access monitoring.

KidoZen supports more than 10 different JavaScript mobile frameworks, enabling HTML5 and JavaScript developers to build enterprise-ready mobile apps without having to master an additional mobile platform, co-founder Jesus Rodriguez said in an email. KidoZen also integrates with more than a dozen mobile app development platforms from the native stacks to cross-platform technologies such as Xamarin. This allows developers to use different languages like Objective C, Java, JavaScript or C# to author their enterprise mobile applications.

KidoZen’s strength is its ability to bridge system-of-record technologies such as SAP with front-end frameworks, making it pretty accessible to any level developer. But this is a fierce market with players like Cloud Foundry, OpenShift and a host of back-end service providers such as Kinvey. It also now faces companies like Salesforce, which has launchedSalesforce1, its new mobile platform. But few have the capability to connect legacy systems with front-end developer tools like KidoZen can do.

Rodriguez said that the company has 60 Global 1,000 customers who are using the platform to deliver business and consumer apps. For example, cruise-line customers have built suites of apps to automate different aspects of the business from managing the passenger manifest to monitoring the flow of passengers into casinos or restaurants.