Drund - Browser Agnostic - But Are They Platform Agnostic?

written by: Richard Kastelein

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Published on Tuesday, 01 March 2011 14:42

Today marks the launch of Drund, an application management and browser-agnostic development platform. The brainchild of Azork, Ltd. this technology will allegedly give developers a single platform to deploy their apps across any Web browser. But it seems there is some confusion.

Mashable also covered Drund's release - erroneously reporting (in my opinion)  that this is a developer solution for all connected devices. Which it is not. It's a cross browser solution, but that can not include out-of-the-box native app environments on Connected TVs and Game Consoles such as Samsung's Smart Hub, LG connected TVs or even Sony Bravia - which demand more than just HTML 5. And simply using Oauth and a Restful API, such as Drund is using, is not enough.

In the original press release Drund states:

"...this technology will allow users to manage their online life from any Internet connected device and give developers a single platform to deploy their apps across any Web browser. "

Not on my Connected TV which does not have a browser. Most 2009 Smart TV's don't have a browser - which is changing this year as Opera has been striking deals left and right to include their browser in the next generation of TVs. But that's still in the future. STBs and OTT solutions like Boxee, Google TV and Roku have built in Browsers which Drund's apps are likely to work on - if they are optimized correctly for big screen and ten foot experience in the living room. 

This is something that many companies have been looking at - the quagmire of multiplatform app development and how to crack the nut with a single solution - and even movements such as Webinos - an EU funded project to the tune of €14 million that has 22 partner companies and also recently released their first draft in the open source project. They are going for the whole gamut - including cars and Connected TVs.