International software firm relocates HQ to Centreville

International cross-platform app development software Titanium has relocated its headquarters to Centreville in Bibb County.

Over a year in the making, Alabama nonprofit software foundation TiDev Inc. was assigned the intellectual property trademark rights along with repository control of the opensource Titanium from publicly traded Arizona corporation Axway Inc. on April 7.

Titanium was developed in 2008 using $90 million of venture capital funds.

TiDev Board Chairman Josh Lambert said he is thrilled the app development firm will now be headquartered in his hometown of Centreville.

“As a long-time mobile developer here in Central Alabama building apps for iPhone and Android devices, it is a great joy and honor to see my favorite app development technology return to the Southern USA and locate in the community I call home,” Lambert said.

The TiDev Inc development team has already started the process of merging bug-fixes and improvements into the software source code. Lambert said the foundation plans to ship the first community-driven release of Titanium in May 2022.

“The Titanium SDK and related tooling has a long legacy of making app development a clean and streamlined process for both iPhone and Android devices,” he said. “We have assembled an international board of directors with a depth of experience in working with the Titanium product and they are committed to ensuring that this software is maintained going forward as the next generation of apps are built on top of it.”

Atlanta-founded startup Appcelerator released the Titanium software development kit in 2008 that allows a developer to build an app for both Android and iPhone devices using a single set of familiar JavaScript source code.

In 2010, Titanium gained support for tablets like Apple’s iPad and later for wearables such as the Apple Watch. Titanium also found its way on to the once popular Windows Phone software and at one time ran on Blackberry devices as well.

Titanium is one of the oldest app development frameworks actively maintained today. As far back as 2013, the publication Business Insider reported that 10% of smartphones worldwide were running apps built with Titanium.

In 2016, Appcelerator was acquired by Axway that continued developing Titanium for several years, adding features and continuing to improve the software.

On Feb. 24, 2021, Axway announced they would no longer maintain the Titanium software projects. Within a few days of Axway’s announcement, a working group of long-time Titanium developers, including Josh Lambert, Jason Kneen, Chris Barber, Sebastian Klaus, Ray Belisle, and Richard Lustemburg, began laying plans for a community-driven approach to maintaining this software.

This group was able to put together a team and a nonprofit, IRS-approved 501(c)(3) tax-exempt software foundation emerged with a registered business address in Bibb County.

Lambert, who is a shareholder of Bibb Community Media that owns the Centreville Press, Marion Times Standard and Western Star newspapers, said there are plans to keep Titanium adjusting to new devices as they are released and adapt the software to other platforms.

“TiDev will primarily be focused on ensuring the Titanium SDK and tooling stays actively maintained and patched for both current and future versions of iOS and Android. This means adding support for features that could be introduced on future smartphones, dealing with security patches and other related concerns, and adding developer experience features that make it better and faster to build apps.

In addition to maintenance of existing code, we’re taking a long and hard look at other platforms Titanium could be useful on. As app-driven computers are integrated into more and more places such as smart TVs, VR tech, new wearable devices, and of course — electric vehicles — we see the need for systems like Titanium to grow in the future. If we can find funding to add support for these platforms, you better believe we’re going to try to support those too!"