IBM has announced the next phase of its roadmap to bring the Swift programming language to the cloud.
This was revealed on Monday during the IBM InterConnect 2016 conference taking place in Las Vegas.
Swift is a multi-paradigm, compiled programming language created for iOS, OS X, watchOS, tvOS and Linux development by Apple.
IBM announced a preview of a Swift runtime and a Swift Package Catalogue that it hopes will help enable developers to create apps for the enterprise.
The computing giant claims it is the first cloud provider to enable the development of applications in native Swift, unlocking its potential in simplifying the development of end-to-end apps on the IBM Cloud.
The announcement is the next step in IBM and Apple's shared journey to help enterprises advance their mobile strategy with innovative app design, analytics, process transformation and integration required for a mobile first experience, said Michael Gilfix, vice-president, IBM MobileFirst Offering Management.
"As one of the largest users of Swift for mobile app development, IBM has a deep understanding of the advantages of Swift and the knowledge to assist enterprises in maximising the true potential that server-side Swift will provide," he added.
Introduced in 2014, Swift is the fastest growing programming language, according to Apple. It combines the performance and efficiency of compiled languages with the simplicity and interactivity of popular scripting languages, it adds.
In just over two months since Apple open-sourced the Swift language and IBM released its Swift Sandbox for early exploration of server-side programming in Swift, more than 10 000 developers from around the world have used the IBM Swift Sandbox and more than half a million code runs have been executed in the Sandbox to date.
"IBM is committed to maturing the use of Swift as a server-side language for enterprise development. Traditionally, different technologies are used to develop the application on the client and the business logic on the server. By bringing Swift beyond the client to the server, IBM is breaking down barriers between front-end and back-end development, which can provide enterprises a single language to build rich experiences and back-end business logic," said Gilfix.
Enterprises can benefit from increased speed and efficiency while simultaneously taking advantage of growing availability of Swift skills, he noted, adding that using Swift on the server introduces a simpler, more secure toolchain for end-to-end application development.
"Modern digital apps require a modern programming language. Swift is easy-to-learn, reliable, fast and interactive; the key traits that CIOs look for when building the next generation of enterprise mobile apps," Gilfix pointed out.
"Swift on the cloud is an opportunity for enterprises to radically simplify the development of end-to-end applications and therefore reach new levels of productivity."
IBM Swift engineers are working with the growing Swift.org developer community and are focused on contributing to concurrency on multicore hardware, which is critical for enterprise-scale workloads. IBM will release a number of resources that will further enable the community to explore, build and share Swift assets.
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