Magic Teams Up with Samsung in Smartphone Pact

December 11, 2012 Alex Woodie

Magic Software last week announced it has hooked up with Samsung, the biggest maker of Android smartphones and tablets, in a bid to gain a share of the booming market for enterprise mobility solutions.

Samsung’s Enterprise Alliance Program provides a way for software vendors and integrators to get assistance from Samsung in developing and bringing to market applications for the South Korean company’s successful Galaxy line of Android phones and tablets. There are four levels of membership in the program, including bronze, silver, gold, and platinum levels. Silver partners, such as Magic, gain an advantage in building “differentiated user experiences” on Samsung devices, the company’s website says.

Magic heavily targets mobile devices with its xpa, an application development and deployment platform that was formerly called uniPaaS before Magic quietly changed it to xpa earlier this year (iBolt is now xpi). The metadata-driven development tool generates both client and server components (including support for the IBM i server), and Windows, Web, and mobile interfaces.

Magic has supported the iOS and Android mobile platforms for about a year, and has supported Blackberry and Windows Phone devices with the software since it kicked off a big mobile development push a year and a half ago.

The partnership with Samsung will give Magic a boost in targeting the Galaxy phones, which own a 32 percent of the smartphone market by some accounts. “Mobility is truly the future of enterprise applications,” Magic CEO Guy Bernstein said in a press release. The partnership with Samsung “positions us well to penetrate the large and fast-growing enterprise mobility market.”

In other news, Magic reported $32.6 million in revenue for the third quarter ended September 30, a 9 percent increase compared to the same period last year. Net income for the third quarter increased 2 percent to $4.1 million, or $0.11 per fully diluted share. Magic’s stock, which is traded on the NASDAQ, is up nearly 10 percent since the results were released November 8.