Salesforce.com Doubles Mobile Packs, Adds Design Templates For Design-Challenged Developers

Salesforce.com is doubling the mobile packs it makes available, adding design templates for developers and a feature for syncing data.

It’s all part of an effort for Salesforce to help clients use its platform to build apps that foster productivity during those hundreds of, what the company calls, “micro-moments” that we face every day. Yes — if it smells like marketing, it usually is. But there is some meat on the bones of this new release even if it is packaged with that trademark Salesforce spin. Here are a few of the highlights.

First, Salesforce is making available four new app frameworks in its mobile pack: Knockout.jsAppery.ioSencha Touch and Xamarin. All are well-known app frameworks in the developer community.

The company is also offering new templates for the design-challenged developers. More than 20 open source HTML5/CSS templates are available that connect with customer data in Salesforce through the mobile packs.

mobile-design-templates

Salesforce is also launching sample mobile design templates for developers to try:

mobile-gallery

A new syncing feature is part of the company’s Mobile 2.0 SDK release, allowing developers to sync offline data they have created when they go back online:

smartsync

Salesforce.com is pushing this concept of the micro-moment so expect to hear more about it from them in the coming months. I can see it now — CEO Marc Benioff, onstage at Dreamforce, pacing in his usual way, talking about all the apps for those micro-moments in your life. That’s fine with me as long as they keep adding substance behind the marketing message.