Monaca Helps Non-Programmers Build Apps

When Japanese people hear the word Monaca (or Monaka), a traditional wafer cake filled with bean jam comes to mind. But a Tokyo-based web integration company called Asial Corporation has invented a brand new system under this same name. Monaca is a web-based integrated environment for developing smartphone apps, and it allows you to develop apps for multiple smartphone environments (iOS and Android so far).

It’s a very simple process that doesn’t require programming skills. Screen sequences on the emulation platform are animated and enabled with HTML5 and JavaScript. Runtime excutable programs for the both smartphone platforms will be compiled on the cloud-based service, and can be exported. You can then submit it to the iPhone app store or the Android App Market, making it available to the public.

Asial's CEO Tanaka Pitches at Startup Dating Salon (Feb 22, 2012)

Prior to unveiling the app at DEMO Asia, which is currently taking place in Singapore, Asial’s founder and CEO Masahiro Tanaka came to Startup Dating Salon, a networking event happening every Wednesday in Tokyo, where he presented his idea:

With the integration of PhoneGap, an opensource smartphone app developement  framework by Nitobi (acquired by Adobe Systems last October), developers are allowed to integrate their apps with handset-embeded features like the camera, GPS, and motion sensor. Our platform is not appropriate for developing fully-featured apps, but I believe this give non-programmers a good option to develop light-weight apps with their own hands.

Mr. Tanaka also revealed his team has been working long and hard to complete the platform, and he believes no other vendors could easily develop a similar environment that simplifies app development processes.

Asial Corporation is now visiting Singapore and he just presented about the platform at the Launch Startup pitching session of DEMO Asia today.

Asial is a web app and smartphone app developer founded in 2002 by the CEO Tanaka and his classmates at the graduate school at the University of Tokyo. He was born in Japan, but raised in Dallas and Los Angeles. He was well-known for introducing freeware and shareware while attending high school.