Oracle confirms AppForge rumors

Oracle has taken over the intellectual property assets of AppForge, a mobile application development company formerly based in Atlanta.

About two weeks ago the AppForge Web site started redirecting to Oracle’s Web site, and rumors of acquisition started proliferating across the blogosphere. Oracle has now — more or less — confirmed those rumors. The company says it hasn’t purchased the whole company, just its intellectual property.

In a statement posted on Oracle’s Web site, the database and business applications giant said AppForge’s technology will help it to create “mini-applications” for mobile devices including Palm, Symbian and Blackberry. The company says its goal is to better serve the needs of mobile workforces such as sales teams and field service engineers.

Oracle has also hired several former AppForge employees, but says it has no plans to support former AppForge customers going forward.

Additionally, Oracle has posted answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs) about the AppForge deal, but according to Andrew Clarke, a software consultant and blogger, the FAQs are lacking in one key area.

According to Clarke: “There is a set of FAQs for AppForge’s customers, which doesn’t actually answer the most frequently asked question of all, i.e. ‘what the flip do I do with my AppForge licenses now?’”

– Mark Brunelli, News Editor