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Interop New York To Shine Spotlight On Mobility, Cloud Computing: Page 2 of 3

Mobility is expected to be one of the hottest topics at this year's show. Smartphones are an emerging technology that can boost productivity, particularly among sales staff and executives. Research In Motion's BlackBerry is the leader in business, particularly as a device for accessing e-mail. Apple, however, is poised to become a player with the new 3G iPhone, a faster version of the original that has been opened up to third-party developers and corporate IT to build applications that can run on the device.

The high interest in the Mobile Business Expo reflects the amount of attention corporations have given mobile devices and software over the last year, Heymann said. "Businesses are adopting mobility in a big way in their business plans."

The mobile expo this year consists of five tracks: application development for smartphones, enterprise wireless, mobile Internet, mobile toolsets, and wireless technology. The first track covers app dev for the BlackBerry, for Microsoft's Windows Mobile, and for the Symbian operating system, which is found in smartphones from Nokia, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson.

Of course, there will also be sessions on development for the two newest platforms, Google Android and Apple's 3G iPhone, which became available in July.

Apple's decision to release a software development kit for the latest iPhone has generated a huge amount of interest among developers and the session is expected to be well attended. Experts in the platform will examine how to develop applications for the iPhone, with an overview of the capabilities of the platform for consumers and businesses.

Google Android is an open source platform expected to challenge the Symbian OS. The session will explore the OS, software development frameworks, tools, and hardware capabilities of the Android architecture.

With so many platforms to choose from deciding which fits a company's needs may be difficult. To help IT professionals decide, the mobile expo includes a session that promises to provide a lively debate on the question: What is the best software environment for mobile devices?