VSLive Mystery surrounds the fate of AppForge, the mobile applications developer, with suggestions the company may have ceased trading.

AppForge, whose partner list reads like a Who's Who in mobile platforms and devices, is thought to have gone out of business on March 15. Questions over AppForge's future surfaced today as partner Microsoft hosted its annual VSLive developer conference in San Francisco, California.

Calls to AppForge during the company's stated business hours have been answered by a recorded message saying the offices are closed. AppForge was contacted by email but did not respond at time of going to press.

At least one rival has started to exploit the uncertainty. SatelliteForms.net, a Palm and PocketPC rapid application specialist, is flagging its products as an alternative while offering AppForge customers' a "special transition incentive."

AppForge is famed for its Crossfire plug in to Microsoft's Visual Studio integrated development environment and Crossfire client for Blackberry, Palm, Windows PocketPC and Smartphone, Sony Ericsson, Nokia and Motorola devices.

The company promised to help developers and organizations re-use existing IT infrastructure, meaning Visual Studio, saving time and achieving good return on investment when putting consumer and enterprise applications on mobile devices.®