DeveloperForce.com hosts Mobile Code Talk Google Hangout on Salesforce Platform for Mobile Services with Sandeep Bhanot, Dave Carroll, and more.

DeveloperForce.com's Google Hangout : Mobile Code Talk

A few days ago, I wrote about Salesforce.com's latest announcement regarding their new Open Source Salesforce Platform for Mobile Services, Mobile Packs, and more. Only two days later the team that put together most of the resources referenced in that post got together online for a Google Hangout and recorded it for YouTube.

It's a fantastic interactive Q & A and overview of the system and its use cases. One of my favorite quotes comes pretty soon into the video from Dave Carroll (@dcarroll):

(3:39 - 4:43) : "Why we included the Mobile Packs into that announcement is because We really see that people want to use the familiar web HTML 5 technologies that they've been using for building other kinds of apps, desktop apps on the web, for instance, and sometimes it's a little hard to get started with a brand new service on the back-end. And so, to smooth that out, to remove some of the bumps on that runway to getting started, we created these Mobile Packs….

…really what they are is a set of tools for the developer…so take Backbone, for instance (that's our Backbone Mobile Pack)…what we've done is just put Force.com behind Backbone, so that you can use Backbone in an idiomatic way building your MVC app, and then you can apply whatever kind of CSS or jQuery Mobile to it to give it that mobile look and feel."

Mobile Packs allow developers to focus on developing application and presentation logic on
their favorite JavaScript framework of choice...

Fortunately for those of us who have to make real-world decisions on a daily basis, Kevin Hawkins evaluates the pros vs. cons of Native vs. Hybrid vs. HTML5:

In addition, Dave strongly hints that they're working on some additional Mobile Packs that will be released in the near future that provide similar functionality for the following platforms:

He notes that the key is their focus on Open Source, so check out their GitHub and contribute already!

You may also want to check out Sandeep's other informative posts on the AT&T Toolkit for Salesforce® Platform. If you're using AT&T as a provider, you have a wealth of access to all your devices, even NON-SMART phones!

My guess is you're also probably going to want to attend a Mobile Developer Event in the next few weeks, so check these out: