Embarcadero launches Firemonkey for developers

SOFTWARE DEVELOPER TOOLS OUTFIT Embarcadero Technologies has launched Firemonkey, a CPU and GPU powered business application platform that enables developers to create visually engaging, native applications for Windows, Mac and IOS devices.

Firemonkey allows developers to build rich HD and 3D graphics applications with fast native performance, animation, image effects, enterprise-class database connectivity and interactive data visualisation, and build to Amazon and Azure cloud services.

Until now, rich user experiences have been exclusive to web entertainment, advertising and media, said Embarcadero. It claims that Firemonkey is the first business platform that "makes it easy to build next-generation, rich user experiences on all key platforms and devices to meet the performance, connectivity and platform requirements of business software".

Using Firemonkey, developers can write applications that compile natively for the Windows, Mac OS X and IOS operating systems, saving significant time and resources.

Meanwhile, the company claims that data and hardware intensive applications for scientific, financial, medical, GIS, communications and machine control industries built using Firemonkey can deliver faster, more visually rich user experiences with its GPU powered HD scalable vector and 3D user interfaces, animation and effects.

Firemonkey's Livebindings allow users to connect any type of data or information to any Firemonkey user interface (UI) or graphics objects.

Users can bind live data to standard UI controls or to HD and 3D graphics to create new ways to visualise any type of data. Meanwhile, connected applications are easy to build and extend with Firemonkey's components for database, cloud and web services.

Firemonkey is included with Delphi XE2, C++Builder XE2 and RAD Studio XE2, which also includes RadPHP and Embarcadero Prism. All tools are available worldwide. To download a free trial, go to http://www.embarcadero.com/downloads. µ