4D Announces New Wakanda Beta; Provides First Complete Model-Driven, End-to-End JavaScript Stack

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - May 30, 2012) - O'Reilly Fluent Conference -- 4D, a leading provider of open source integrated application development solutions, today announced Wakanda Beta 2, the newest beta version of its popular Wakanda JavaScript development platform. With Wakanda, developers have a first-ever full stack JavaScript development platform for Web and mobile business applications. The new Wakanda foundation relies on best-of-breed technology -- Web and mobile applications, a development studio, client framework, NoSQL database, server and model-driven architecture. The company will offer both an Open Source community and commercial version of Wakanda. Web applications developed with Wakanda are easily deployed on the Cloud.

Developers can use Wakanda to program the entire application stack with JavaScript and its Model Driven Architecture (MDA) assures high levels of re-use and decreases in maintenance costs. Both the user interface (UI) and the data model of the application are designed with a powerful WYSIWYG designer from Wakanda Studio, and the Wakanda client framework and GUI designer leverage the full power of HTML5 and CSS3. The NoSQL object datastore natively speaks REST/HTTP and server-side JavaScript (SSJS). Unlike with SQL databases, there is no need to use an ORM layer. There is no hidden SQL generation. Wakanda natively understands the business logic.

Built on 25 years of business application experience and with the support of an active developer community, Wakanda's new development environment can be extended with third-party widgets, libraries and server modules. In addition, Wakanda's open source environment supports developers in adding connectors to their preferred databases. The entire Wakanda solution supports full industry standard compliance, including JSON, REST/HTTP, W3C, and CommonJS.

"With this newest version of Wakanda we are providing one open, complete solution for all Web and mobile business application development," said Laurent Ribardiere, Wakanda CTO and creator. "Developers no longer need to learn, integrate and maintain different technologies in different languages -- Wakanda delivers a cohesive JavaScript stack instead of disparate technologies. With Wakanda, developers can program their entire application with JavaScript from end-to-end."

Wakanda Offers Powerful JavaScript Programming Features
In addition to providing end-to-end JavaScript programming, Wakanda leverages existing libraries and third party solutions on both client and server, and is cloud-ready. A complete list of individual features of Wakanda Studio, Wakanda Server and Wakanda Framework grouped by functional areas of the platform can be found at http://www.wakanda.org/features/ and includes touch for mobile development, pure multi-threaded JavaScript, NoSQL Object Datastore and many other new features.

In an IDC White Paper, Al Hilwa, Program Director, Application Development Software for IDC found, "Wakanda is a well-designed end-to-end application platform that comes complete with a graphical development environment catering to modern developer requirements... The application development approach supported by Wakanda abstracts much of the complexity in developing enterprise applications rapidly and productively." (IDC White Paper, sponsored by 4D, Inc., Wakanda: Blending Traditional Developer Productivity with Modern Web Architecture and Standards, October 2011)

Availability and Pricing
Wakanda production release will be available in June in both community and commercial versions. The community version of Wakanda will be free. Monthly subscriptions for commercial licenses and developer support will start at $35 per month for one developer and will include a royalty-free unlimited deployment right.

About 4D, Inc.
A global leader in business software development solutions for over 25 years, 4D provides integrated platforms that simplify and speed up the development and deployment of Web, Mobile, Desktop, and Client-Server Business Applications. 4D solutions and development tools are used in more than 70 countries, count millions of end users and over 10,000 Independent Software Vendors (ISVs). 4D is located in San Jose, California. For more information, please visit www.4D.com or call 1-408-557- 4600.