Google Apps gains traction

According to a Google executive, the company's Apps software has won over 20 million users across "a few million businesses," as it looks ahead to an impending revamp of rival technology from Microsoft, states Wall Street Journal.

Matthew Glotzbach, director of product management for Google Enterprise, said Google Apps - which includes document and spreadsheet tools, as well as the Gmail service - has now moved "out of that early-adopter phase," when "our one big customer" was biotech giant Genentech.

Apps are designed to compete with Microsoft's dominant Office suite of software. But unlike Office, Google's Apps technology is entirely hosted online and delivered on a subscription basis, a model of 'cloud computing'.

Filemaker's Bento database application for the iPhone and iPod touch has sold over 100 000 copies, making it Apple's most popular productivity app, reports Telecommunications Review.

Bento, which costs $NZ 6.50 (R35) to download, can be used as a standalone application or can be synchronised with the Mac desktop version of Bento.

Since its May release, Bento has received critical acclaim from various media outlets, being named 'Best app for personal databases' by Best iPhone Apps (O'Reilly Media).

Orange has unveiled a service called Application Shop to meet the growing demand from users for access to mobile data, says Computing.co.uk.

The service is currently available to 1.3 million phones in the UK and France, and as of January will be preloaded on Orange devices including the Nokia 6700 and Sony Ericsson W995, and later on Samsung, LG, HTC, Motorola and RIM handsets.

Orange has also worked with device manufacturers to ensure that applications can work across platforms including Java, Android, BlackBerry, Symbian and Windows Mobile.