Introducing Interloc Informer, Part I

We’ve gone through a bit of an evolution lately here at Interloc. Our flagship product, Mobile Informer, was getting a long in the tooth. First introduced in 2010, Mobile Informer had provided innovative mobile applications for Maximo to customers around the world for a decade and a half. In that time, IBM had introduced several new versions of Maximo, culminating with the release (in June 2020) of the Maximo Application Suite (MAS). Officially version 8.0, the name change from Maximo EAM to MAS reflected a renewed commitment to advancing the capabilities of the solution, including a significant change to the underlying infrastructure involved.

MAS introduced a new model built on modules – much of the legacy solution was moved into “MAS Manage” – and promises for new modules and capabilities to be added in the future. Since MAS 8.0, we’ve seen Monitor, Health, Predict, Maximo Visual Inspection (MVI), Assist, Maximo for Real Estate and Facilities (MREF – essentially bringing the Trirega product into the MAS universe), and more. It was clear that the Mobile Informer product was built for a different time, and for what had become in some ways, and obsolete Maximo product.

Additionally, we understood that it was time to update our technical approach. Although our legacy product was built to deliver native applications using the standard tooling (Objective C and Swift for iOS, for instance), it did create a need to maintain separate code for each target platform (iOS, Android, and Windows). We frequently heard from customers that they would like to see a cross-platform solution, but it was equally important to us that we deliver a product which adhered to the established “Pillars” of Informer, including performance at scale (with large data sets, offline, for lots of users).

We tried various cross-platform development tools, and subjected each to a battery of tests to ensure that we were satisfied with the performance and the extensibility of the cross-platform development approach. It took us until 2025 to identify a technical architecture that would preserve our Pillars while also enabling us to deliver and keep current with new MAS features in an intuitive, easy-to-use modernized mobile application. Our revised approach to Informer would prioritize the user experience (known as “UX” in software-speak), because we understand that making apps easy to use and reliable is the first step in making a tool that users will welcome and embrace as part of their daily routine.

All of that is to say – we had a lot of catching up to do. New Maximo/MAS features, new technology, and a new model for how to deliver an all-in-one mobile solution that preserved the key elements of Mobile Informer that had made it the premiere choice for discerning enterprise customers for fifteen years. That work resulted in the UX Suite, which had a fully-redesigned look and feel. We introduced UX Suite at MaximoWorld in 2025, and initial feedback was overwhelmingly positive. After the official launch in November 2025, we immediately went back to work expanding the product’s feature set and refining the user experience based on feedback we were hearing from customers (and prospective customers!). New additions have included integrated Azure SSO support, ESRI GIS support, countbooks, routes, and more, but there are even brighter and shinier things on the horizon.

So now, the world has been introduced to the UX Suite, but there are more changes afoot….

Up next, Re-Introducing Interloc Informer, Part II, or “What happened to the mobile part of the name?”