Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Funambol V7 is GA!

Pop the champagne, Funambol V7 is out ;-)

Wow, we are at version seven, pretty much one every year since 2001. It has been a long way in the open source world. I am amazed at how open the mobile space has become, since we started pushing the concept. I heard that one of the key theme for the next 3GSM conference will be Mobile Open Source... Can you believe it? When we went there for the first time with our booth there and an enormous sign on top (FUNAMBOL: Mobile Open Source) people were stopping by and asking: "What?? Are you crazy?? How do you put together Mobile AND Open Source??". Man, time changes everything ;-)

Enough with the memories, let's look at what is new in Funambol V7 (from the press release, Release Notes are here).
Funambol v7's new capabilities include open source software for BlackBerry push email and PIM sync, an iPhone plug-in for contacts sync, an enhanced Java ME push email client for hundreds of millions of feature phones, Yahoo! and Gmail contact import into the Funambol Portal, server syncing of tasks and notes via native SyncML clients, an enhanced SDK and greater scalability.

Funambol Client Improvements

  • BlackBerry push email client and PIM sync plug-in
  • iPhone plug-in for contacts sync
  • Windows Mobile and Outlook plug-ins sync notes and briefcase files
  • Java ME push email client supports Samsung and LG devices; TCP/IP push email; receiving & viewing attachments via mobile browser; send photo (selected devices)

Portal Improvements (Carrier Edition)

  • Yahoo! & Gmail contacts import
  • Support for mobile phones without a native SyncML client
  • Improved sign-up process security

Server Improvements

  • Sync of tasks and notes using native SyncML clients
  • Improved connector compatibility
  • Improved Funambol trailer for outgoing email

System Management and Admin Improvements

  • Database scalability and high availability (Carrier Edition)
  • Improved log searchability and tracking
  • Simplified system configuration structure

Additional Improvements

  • Funambol SDK includes new connector testing framework
  • Improved documentation
  • Hundreds of other enhancements and bug fixes