Amit Regev, CEO of SBSH Software

As we continue the JAMM Developer Interview Series, this week finds us both having sat down with Marc of Ilium Software on Monday and today, spending some time with Amit Regev.  Amit is the CEO of SBSH Software, the company behind Windows Mobile classics like PocketBreeze, PocketWeather and Go News Touch.

While visiting with Amit, he shared some great “sneak peak” information about upcoming platforms and programs that SBSH are going towards, along with his predictions on the future of mobile technology.  He also addresses the SBSH development methodology, which I think you’ll find rare among today’s developers.  And on yeah, he finally reveals what SBSH stands for.

Without further ado, please join us below.  JAMM’s questions are in bold while Amit’s responses are indented.  After reading the interview, be sure to leave any questions or comments that you may have.  Also, as per the last question please leave any good book suggestions that you may have for Amit.  We’ll be sure that he gets them.

Hi Amit.  Thanks for agreeing to this interview.  Can you tell the readers at JAMM a little bit about the history of SBSH Software, and the mobile solutions it offers?

Hi Brian, thank you very much for the opportunity and inviting me here today, I really appreciate it!

SBSH Software specialize in development for mobile devices. We started developing for mobile devices 8 years ago, focusing mainly on Pocket PC development. Since then we’ve expanded our activity to virtually all smart-phone platforms, offering today some of the market leading apps for the Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, iPhone and Series 60 platforms.

In this upcoming year we will continue our expansion, introducing new apps for the most recent and exciting platforms: webOS, Android and Microsoft’s new Silverlight based Windows Phone 7!

How did you get involved with developing software for mobile devices?

The idea to develop applications for mobile devices goes back 11 years ago, back to the days I was still in high school. Around that time I got my very first PDA – Handspring Visor. For those who don’t remember, it was made of somewhat cheap-looking blue plastic with staggering 2MB of memory and running Palm OS.

Playing with the Visor I got familiar with the endless possibilities mobile development can bring! Packed with low resolution B/W screen and without phone capabilities it really didn’t do all that much, but it was mobile, it synced with my PC and this was definitely enough for some amazing new opportunities!

Three years and about five Palm-powered devices later, in 2002, I got my first Pocket PC device, an iPAQ running Pocket PC 2002 OS. This was when I first started coding actual apps for mobile devices. The potential encapsulated in mobile development was clear from the start. At that time I developed several small apps, one of which was Calendar Plus – a small today plug-in listing your appointments and tasks on your Today screen: “Your Today Screen Just Became Tomorrow’s”

Three years later and several incarnations it was re-introduced as PocketBreeze, one of our ever best selling apps back-in-the-days that gave us the leverage to go to the next level.

Your applications represent a diverse portfolio, not necessarily fitting into one genre.  SBSH Software has applications for working with PIM in PocketBreeze and Calendar Touch, RSS feeds with GoNews Touch and secure data management in SafeWallet, to name a few.  How do you decide upon the programs SBSH Software creates?

Although our apps catalog spreads on a variety of categories, our thumb rule remains developing apps that users need for their real-life needs; apps that help users get the most of their smart-phones and get their smart-phone work for them.

We focus on real applications that real people need – apps people use for years; Once a user downloads one of our apps he or she will immediately see the benefits of using our apps and will definitely benefit from using our apps for a long time. This shows by the large number of returning customers we have that use our cross-platform switching program that allow users to easily take their favorite apps to their new phone when switching platforms.

In most cases we try to avoid games development and we won’t develop small gimmick-style apps, a trend that started in the early days following the iPhone release, which I predict will decade as the market and users mature together – users will be willing to pay a bit more for apps, but at the same time will be looking for more added-value from their apps and getting apps that they won’t delete from their phones the following day.

SBSH Software has a long standing reputation of releasing an initial version of a program, and then rapidly adding functionality in the form of small releases.  How do you maintain this intensity in developing your programs?

We’ve always believed the path to market leading apps goes through the market; This is clearly reflected in our development process and when looking at the large and active community we have at our company forums.

Taking this guideline to practice, we have our unique development process that starts by defining a new solution goals and developing a first official release with the help of a closed beta team.

Once a first version is released to the market we pay close attention to the feedback we get from our users and together with our users draw the path for upcoming developments. We found that this is the way to success and together with the great help of more than 120K forum members, we designed and produces some of the best selling mobile apps today!

Our development methodology sees the first release as a start of a new path rather than the end.

Can you tell our readers anything about upcoming projects you are working on?

During 2010 we plan to expand our existing line of professional applications to all leading Smartphone platforms, making each of our best selling solutions available for users of any mobile platform. With such multi-platform approach our users will be able to enjoy SBSH solution with any Smartphone operating system and take their SBSH apps with them whenever switching to a new platform!

With your permission, I will be glad to take advantage of this review and announce for the first time that the most robust weather application for mobile devices, PocketWeather, will shortly be available for iPhone and iPod Touch users! Similar to the Windows Mobile version, PocketWeather for iPhone doesn’t fall behind, packing together the most powerful weather tracking and forecasting tools ever made available for mobile devices! We invite our users to stay tuned for more news about PocketWeather for iPhone in upcoming weeks!

Continuing with a similar line of multi-platform development, our users can expect to find the rest of our best selling applications expanding to all Smartphone platforms in upcoming months! Additionally, we have one new very important major project we’ve been working on for a while now which is also planned for release during 2010!

SBSH Software already has software available for Windows Mobile, Blackberry, Symbian and iPhone.  Can we expect to see any of your programs on newer operating systems, such as WebOS or Android?

Definitely Yes. Our first webOS application is already in last beta testing stages and is most likely to be released during Q2 2010.

We are also pushing in full pace with new Android developments and plan to launch a full set of applications for Android phones during 2010, some of which are already in stages of development and beta testing!

With all of the interesting twists in the mobile arena, what predictions do you have regarding the future of mobile computing?

Over the past 8 years I learned that predicting what will happen in the future of the mobile sphere is similar to predicting lottery numbers. We’ve witnessed the meteoric rise of the mobile market in general, and the apps market in specific; A growth that brought some surprising changes with it. Yet, I will take advantage of your question here and gladly fall in to this trap (again).. Here are two short term prediction that I believe we will see during 2010 and one long term prediction that I’m willing to make.

Most analysts predict that Apple will become the largest smart phone manufacturer within the next five years. Personally I don’t see this happening, unless Apple will manufacture new models that introduce new hardware changes such as QWERY keyboard and various sizes. At the time of release the iPhone was revolutionary, and still is, but users get board quickly. Software and minor hardware additions alone won’t allow Apple to continue its growth. Without opening the iPhone OS for other OEMs, or, producing new iPhone models in a similar way to the iPod series, I don’t believe Apple will be able to continue its current growth rate.

My prediction is that Apple understands that software changes won’t keep their market growth and we will be seeing an expansion of the iPhone brand to a series of products in a similar way to the iPod family, such as the iPod Nano, iPod Shuffle and so forth. New hardware will bring new innovations and opportunities to apps developers as well.

My second prediction is regarding Nokia. Currently, a giant that slowly but steady losing its market share to the new comers. Nokia is definitely paying for the lack of innovation over the past several years after enjoying the benefits of being the strongest player. With a growing demand from users for smarter phones, carriers are forced to introduce new devices, such as Android and the iPhone, and we are seeing cracks in the wall Nokia-carriers connections that allowing new players to grow in the mobile market.

For the past year Nokia learned that the rules have changed and selling phones without apps no longer works. Furthermore, Nokia will need to find the right way to re-invent itself before it will reach the no-return point and it will become impossible for Nokia to stop their fall. Nokia’s hardware is definitely one of the strongest out there, while their software, operating system to be precise, is their weakest point. With the growing demand for more apps, hence a growing focus on devices’ software, Nokia failed to introduce the software solutions users demand.

My prediction we will witness Nokia letting go of their Smart phone software developments initiatives, such as Symbian and Maemo, and moving forward with one of the new innovative Smart phone platforms. My best guess here will be for Android powered Nokia devices, or, the rumors indicating Nokia to buy Palm’s webOS will indeed take place.

The sooner Nokia will let go of their software development ambitions and focus back on hardware innovation the better it will be, for Nokia and for us users!

Taking a wider look at the mobile market I believe the most important developments we will see in upcoming years will be related to new input methods, replacing the dial-pad, QWERTY keyboard and touch screens we know today. We’ve witnessed amazing developments for the past few years that allow us to utilize our smart phones better and faster, and yet, even with the latest technology, the largest performance bottle neck up-to-date remains the communication layer between us users and our smart phones.

I believe we will be seeing new technologies developed over the next few years that will allow us to communicate faster with our smart phones. Such new communication layer with our smart phones will also introduce a new era of smart phone designs once the user input layer is taken out of the hardware design of the smart phone, as it is today.

SBSH seems to be an acronym.  I’ve always personally been curious as to what the letters stand for.  Would you share what SBSH stands for with us?

Smart Boutique Software House.

Finally, is there anything else that you would like readers to know about your SBSH Software, your programs or yourself?

I would love to get some good book recommendations! If you have any, please let me know! And be sure to follow us twitter @sbshsoft.

Thanks for having me here Brian. Have a great day!

Thanks again, Amit.  We really appreciate you taking the time to sit down with us.

If you have any questions, comments or book suggestions, please leave them in the comments section below.  We’ll be sure that Amit gets a copy of them!

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