Who Makes This Stuff - with The Makers of Pocket Informant

Posted by: PatrickJ on Aug 24 2006

 

 

"We listen to customers, communicate with them one-on-one and give them the ability to pitch ideas and see them come to fruition. I really believe that the main reason for our success is this close relationship with our customers. Its not just a business transaction to us."

Ever wondered who’s behind some of those essential, favorite applications you use every day on your Pocket PC or smartphone, and how they’ve made them so popular and successful?

If so, hopefully you will enjoy this series of posts, where we will talk to some of the very best software developers and publishers. In these brief Q&A sessions, we’ll learn a little about how they got started, their views on how the whole mobile applications area is going to develop, and their thoughts on what it takes to make excellent mobile software.

For our third post in this series, we are very happy to have Alex Kac, President and Founder of Web Information Solutions, makers of Pocket Informant, FlexMail, FlexWallet, and their newest product, VoiceMinder. Alex provides some great background on his company’s philosophy, thoughts on what makes a great mobile app, the story of where the idea for the exciting new VoiceMinder app came from, singing Karaoke with Agenda Fusion’s CEO, and lots more.

I hope some of you are enjoying the posts in this series even half as much as I’m enjoying reading them. One thing that keeps coming across so strongly in all three of these Q&A sessions is how each of these great software publishers places HUGE emphasis on communicating with and listening to US, their customers - in shaping their product development.

Read on for Alex’s great Q&A session with us …

 

Company Profile:

Location: Cedar Park, Texas

Founded: 1997

Number of Staff: (breakdown of management / developers / support staff) 1/5/1

CEO / Principals: 1

Flagship Products: 3

Platforms:Windows Mobile

Q&A:

Q: Can you tell us a little about how the company got started? Was there a particular gap you saw, an application you wanted and nobody made or did right?

Actually Web IS started as a web application consulting company designing, developing, and hosting database driven web applications. Windows Mobile was a side hobby started back in the spring of 2000 after some time with a Palm device and then a Casio E-105. I saw a lot of posts for people looking for a 7 day week view and voila - WISAgenda was created. We got such good feedback from it that we started Pocket Informant.

Q: Give us the ‘Elevator Pitch’ on WebIS – what’s the corporate philosophy that drives your product development?

We exist because of our customers and as such we exist for our customers. Our software is driven by the needs of our customer base and so we focus on solutions that focus on solving business and personal challenges on the Windows Mobile platform in an easy to understand and use way.

Q: What makes a GREAT Pocket PC application? What are the key factors in making a really successful and effective application for mobile devices?

Focus on usability, speed, and reliability. Don’t try to do too much and be the be all to everyone.

Q: Pocket Informant is one of THE leading PIM products, and just a hugely popular application all the way around. What makes it so successful? How do you keep ahead of the competition?

Customer focus again. We listen to customers, communicate with them one-on-one and give them the ability to pitch ideas and see them come to fruition. I really believe that the main reason for our success is this close relationship with our customers. Its not just a business transaction to us.

Q The PI 2007 Beta has been out for a little while (I’ve been using it and liking it a lot). Are there any major wish-list items for PI that users have told you about that have made it into this release? I think dual reminders is one major new piece?

Dual reminders. Timezone creation. And of course Franklin Covey support. I can’t say how many requests we’ve had for that over the years. We’ve also had a lot of recent requests for more one-handed usability and PI 2007 now provides full soft key support everywhere and a redesigned contacts summary with one handed use in mind. This is especially needed when you’re on a Treo 700w like I am

Q PI and Agenda Fusion seem to be by far and away the two big heavyweights in the PIM applications field. How closely (or not) do you watch what AF is doing and offering in terms of coloring your development of PI?

Actually I try not to. John Psuik and I are good acquaintances and in fact I have a video of us singing karaoke at a recent Handango Conference But because my focus is not what other products do but what our customers want. Sometimes I’ll use a Mac app like iCal or Address Book and come up with an idea I’d like to see in our software, but the only time I use Agenda Fusion as something to look at is if a customer focuses on a specific desire they see implemented there.

Q: I’ve read a few pieces recently on smartphones and mobile applications, and the lack of takeup of applications by ‘normal’ users (i.e. not geeks). There’s a great piece by Michael Mace at Mobile Opportunity on the need for a new mobile platform, because ‘sophisticated mobile data apps’ just don’t sell well. (see it at: http://mobileopportunity.blogspot.com/). It seems that a huge percentage of users just don’t know about a lot of the great software that is out there, and don’t know all the powerful things they can do with their mobile device (beyond just phone and email). What are your thoughts on the state of mobile apps sales and how to grow awareness and sales to more of the ‘entry-level’ users out there?

I’ve seen estimates of Windows Mobile devices being anywhere from 35-50 million devices, yet only about a million or two users I believe are those that read the trade magazines and visit the trade web sites and commerce sites like Handango and PocketGear. And that is the real ceiling for us as mobile developers. There are a few potential answers to this. One would be to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars advertising in some high circulation magazines or direct mail with Amazon or such. Another way would be to work with OEMs or phone carriers to pre-ship your product to millions of users for you. Neither is really easy to do.

One thing I’ve learned is if you focus on quality eventually you’ll get somebody that is involved with an OEM or Carrier that will notice you. And that’s really our focus is to work as hard as we can to get noticed for the quality of our products and innovation of our ideas.

Q: Are there Product Roadmaps that you work to for your stable of products – i.e. should we expect a major new version release every 12-18 months, a .x release once per year? What’s the approach in this area?

We work on a schedule built off a few variables. One is Windows Mobile changes. Some Windows Mobile changes require minor changes in our software and some require major changes. Its a lot easier to handle the major changes when you’re able to rework the app from the ground up. Also the major releases give us a chance to really revisit the design choices we’ve made in the past or streamline in the internals that otherwise would be too risky to do. And finally, because of the ceiling on reaching new Windows Mobile customers it helps us finance continual improvements to the software.

Q How is the integration of FlexWallet going? That’s another application category where there is some very stiff competition. Are there any plans to tie Flexwallet and PI together in any ways – any ways the apps may link to each other in future?

We are working to allow FlexWallet linking within PI, but mainly at this time we see FlexWallet as a flagship product that for the 2006 cycle is focused on really polishing the application out. Its a very well written application and has a wonderful base. But its got a lot of polish needed and focus on making it more user friendly. So we’ve been focusing on installation, usability, and synching so far. We’ve already made our decisions for what we want to do with FlexWallet 2007 next year which will focus on far increased security, integration with other apps (not just on the Pocket PC, but on the desktop as well), data compatibility with other wallets, and even further streamlining and polishing of the user interface.

Q You also recently brought out the VoiceMinder beta. Several of us here have been trying it out and finding it very exciting, simple and a great idea. Can you tell us anything about how this one was inspired / developed? And plans for the full release (this month)?

I hope its released this month I consider the PPC version release ready now, but the SmartPhone version is giving us a bit more to work with. I’d like to do an official release with both in the package.

Now the way it came about was pretty simple. Jason Dunn gives me a call one day and says he’s got three ideas he wants to pitch me on. So I listened to them thinking in the back of my mind that we’ve already got a really full plate and knowing from painful experience that trying to do too much inevitably fails. The three ideas were actually quite good, but VoiceMinder made perfect sense for us to do because of the FlexMail codebase that we could use. So I decided to go for it. Its turned out to be incredibly valuable to me and so I know we’ve got a hit with it.

Q: How do your products do in the ‘converged devices’ area as opposed to non-connected PDAs – do you have numbers or a feel for what percentage of your userbase is ‘straight’ PDAs, as opposed to converged devices?

We do far better on converged devices than non-connected PDAs because people tend to use the software more. I feel that probably about a good 60% of our userbase is converged and that has mostly come in the last year with older users upgrading from PDA devices to converged devices. I have no real numbers on this - its just my gut feeling based on what I see discussions on, our beta group, and from support.

Q: Is the future bright for Windows Mobile? What are some of the exciting things to look forward to in the next generation of WM, and what are some of the ways the OS development will allow you to produce more powerful products?

I think so. More carriers are bringing out Windows Mobile devices, the devices actually work, and I think people see the value in them. As Windows Mobile converges into one type of OS instead of the two its at now (smartphone and PDA centric) we’ll see more innovation happening with taking advantage of network aware technologies. And by that I don’t necessarily mean email and web. I mean being able to have a data foundation for your work and life that travels with you from Mac to PC to phone to iPod - whatever you’re using. For example having your latest FlexWallet data with you no matter what device you’re on - without having to manually sync data and all that nonsense. I think having a FlexFlow data stream across our networks would be what I’d look forward to. But that’s going on a bunny trail.

The real things I’m looking forward to are being able to bring more advanced methods of input to the platform. Voice, visuals (video conferencing or EyeToy type stuff), and gestures. Data entry and commands on the PDA are still too mechanical and difficult. So having the OS really refine data input methods at a raw level I think would be the most exciting and useful thing to see going forward.

Q: The Smartphone and Pocket PC awards for 2006 will come out later this year. I always find that a superb jumping-off point for finding great software in lots of categories. So … any of your products we should placing a wager on as a potential 2006 winner?

Honestly I never know. I kind of hope VoiceMinder might get noticed because of its innovative functionality and FlexWallet because of its superb data handling. Pocket Informant and FlexMail seem to be kind of staples, but I wonder if the judges will get tired of us sometimes.

Q: Which other software publishers do you rate highly? Who else should be getting some of those awards this year?

Well that’s a hard one. I’ve got friends in so many of them. I’d actually like to see a new category of awards to show off the most innovatively designed new software awards. Being able to point out new innovative products and ideas to bring them out in the open I think would be quite interesting. The normal awards are very important too because they give us a quick stamp of approval for new customers which is important in breaking that sales ceiling.

So on this one I won’t name any - it shall stay locked up

Q: What can we look forward to from WebIS in the rest of 2006, and into 2007? New versions? Any brand new products coming?

I think for now we don’t want to create new products galore. It becomes too hard for a small company like ours to support and develop as well as continue working on the current apps. We’ve been hard at work over the last few months really pulling out the stops on the new products so for the rest of 2006 we’re going to stay low key and focus on smoothing out any rough edges and streamlining things more.

For the future a lot of it depends on what our customers tell us they want us to do. I have really wanted to work on more server side capabilities for windows mobile - for example a speech to text server for VoiceMinder or certain data-anywhere type capabilities. But we’ll have to see where things go. I’ve learned not too look too far into the future because things change and well the best things usually come from unplanned interesting circumstances

————————————————————————

Thanks very much to Alex for taking time to share some excellent insight with us! If you haven’t already tried out the latest versions of Pocket Informant, FlexMail, FlexWallet or the brand new VoiceMinder, head over to the WebIS site and give these a look:

WebIS Home

See the rest of the posts in the Who Makes This Stuff series:

Who Makes This Stuff Archive  

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!