Hybris and PhoneGap – mCommerce gets better

Contributed by RKVS Raman on 20 Mar 2014

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When it comes to big retail brands, Hybris is used by a majority of them. Hybris is a framework for developing neat, scalable applications be it for eCommerce, multi-channel commerce, Master Data Management (MDM) or order management. Hybris, which is based on the reputed Spring framework, provides solution developers and customers a solid assurance of quality and predictability because of its well thought-out architecture.

Neev has a sizable workforce dedicated to Hybris practice. We have a Centre of Excellence for Hybris solutions. It is our endeavor to extend our Hybris practice and provide it with new capabilities and features.

Hybris platform exposes the capabilities of data access to authenticated client apps through RESTful services. Thus, to build a client app, a developer needs to understand the signatures of each of these service calls. And, we also know how tedious it can be to write wrappers for each of them every single time. Don’t we?

 

Source:http://skuvantage.com.au

Hybris already provides these wrappers in the form of Android SDK and iOS SDK. A developer can use these Software Development Kits (SDKs) to build a native app. But what if we had to use hybrid frameworks like Phonegap?

Enterprises increasingly tend to use Phonegap for developing mobile apps for obvious reasons of low development time, cross platform nature of app development and lesser effort required for maintenance. With Phonegap and availability of frameworks like Steroids or Ionic, we are able to deliver native looking apps at a fraction of time it takes to build native apps.

At Neev, we felt it was time to introduce Phonegap to Hybris. We had two options to approach this challenge. The first one was to build a Cordova wrapper around the existing SDK. The second was to build a pure Javascript solution.

Source: http://phonejs.devexpress.com/

Although building a Cordova wrapper sounds easier, it involves creating the necessary prototypes in Javascript. This forces the mobile developer to package native libraries. Updating the app or addition of new services would demand changes at multiple layers. This discouraged us from adopting the first approach.

We, then, took up the second approach and as a result, we have a pure Javascript version which can be used by a framework like Phonegap and also by pure Javascript clients (including NodeJS). Also, it is far more easier to improvise on its capabilities whenever new features are required.

Planning to build Hybris mobile clients? Use Phonegap, we have solutions for you.

Visit us at Neevtech.com to know more about our offerings.

Tags: android, client app, Cordova, ecommerce, framework, Hybris, Ionic, iOS, Javascript, Master Data Management, MDM, multi-channel commerce, native app, native libraries, NodeJS, PhoneGap, RESTful services, retail, SDK, Software Development Kits, Spring framework, Steroids, wrappers