After having announced the launch of a number of cloud mobile apps, and in keeping with the mobility theme, IFS announced the new IFS Touch Apps Partner Program at the IFS World Conference 2012 in Gothenburg, Sweden. The program, which is aimed at delivering new smartphone apps to IFS customers, will officially launch on November 15, 2012, and five partners have already signed on.

The apps developed through the partner program will use the same IFS Cloud infrastructure as IFS’ own Touch Apps. In practical terms, this means that customers already using IFS Touch Apps do not need to sign any new contracts or perform any additional installation or configuration to use partner-developed apps. IFS acknowledges that it is not the only vendor with innovative app ideas, and via this program, IFS customers can benefit from partners’ innovations with no additional effort. The following five partners have already signed on, with various levels of clarity with regard to the apps they will develop:

1. Through its long cooperation with IFS, Tokyo-based NEC Corporation, one of the world’s leading IT service providers, has a large customer base for which it will develop smartphone apps.
2. Norwegian Addovation has already started development of its first app, inspired by services such as Dropbox and Microsoft SkyDrive, that lets the user access and share documents stored in IFS Document Management via a smartphone.
3. TimeZynk, a Swedish vendor of mobile solutions for personnel planning, time management, and social networking, is developing a multi-platform application providing efficient and user-friendly workflows.
4. UK-based Cedar Bay, a provider of data collection solutions in the UK, France, Spain, and the Americas, is developing an application for inventory and quality assurance processes for use in the IFS Touch Apps framework, targeting off-premises, mobile working.
5. Cooper Software, an IFS systems integration specialist with offices in the UK, Sweden, and France, is designing an innovative app that automates the delivery of customer and supplier reports using e-mail, fax, and electronic data interchange (EDI).

IFS’ intent isn’t necessarily to build thousands of apps via partners. Rather, it will try to moderate the content so as to ensure it meets suitable purposes and customer demand, and to avoid possible conflicts, duplicate work, and cannibalization amongst the partners.

TEC article (July 2012): Bite-sized Apps—A New Trend in Enterprise Software 
TEC blog post (Oct 2011): IFS: Of Vertical Focus, and Customers’ Agility and Choice?
TEC overview: IFS Applications