Development Update

Since a lot of questions about platforms and release plans have come up in the other blog posts, I thought I’d take a second to write a quick update. I hope this helps to answer some of your questions! Keep in mind that in many cases I won’t be able to give specifics, but I will do my best to tell you what I can.

So, if you want some insight into what’s happening at Ilium Software, read on after the jump!

Wait! What? Why no specifics?

A few reasons. The main one is that there is a lot of stuff I’m not allowed to tell you. We have NDAs (Non-Disclosure Agreements) with a lot of people, and the work we’re doing is almost always covered under one of these. I’m just not allowed to tell you some of the things I’d like to.

Also, I recently compared this job to doing improv. The nature of our market means that everything is changing all the time these days. Trying to get specific about something that hasn’t happened just causes problems when circumstances change (and then I can’t explain why due to the first issue I mentioned!)

A Note on Etiquette

I know people have some strong feelings about our products, and sometimes that comes out in blog comments. If I feel that a comment really isn’t constructive or isn’t civil, I will remove it. For a long time I never did this, but I’ve found that there are a lot of people who want to talk about these things but get turned off by too much “passion” so I want this to be an environment where they can be heard.

That said, if you have a “passionate” comment you’d like to make – just email me personally and I’ll reply to you. Send it to info@iliumsoft.com and put Attn: Marc in the subject.

So without further ado, on with the show…

eWallet for Mac: Let’s jump right in shall we? Here is the status:

• We’re still planning to release it!
• We already gave a version to a high level beta team to play with.
• I’m expecting a new build within the next couple weeks.
• I personally think it rocks.

This is quite literally ALL I can tell you right now. Again – we’re not posting this to convince people to hold out for it – we’re just letting you know what’s up!

eWallet for iPhone: We’ve heard your requests and we’re working on it! As you know we added Copy & Paste recently, and just last week we released eWallet Lite.

eWallet for Windows, Windows Mobile, and BlackBerry: All of these platforms are getting attention right now. I can’t say much more but we’re pretty excited about what is in store and we think you’ll like the results.

ListPro for iPhone: Here is the rundown:

• It’s still in development.
• A version exists that we’re using in-house.
• Creating a good sync solution is still a VERY challenging issue.
• We’ve set our sites farther than the “read only” solution we talked about a long time ago.

Like eWallet for Mac, this is ALL I can say about this right now.

Windows Mobile: We did a lot of behind the scenes work getting the Windows Mobile applications ready for Marketplace and we’re quite happy with how that is going. We have additional updates in the works and are very happy with the platform (from a developer and sales perspective.)

Android: Look, I like Android a lot but so far it hasn’t proven itself as a strong market for software development. We already have a lot on our plate and developing versions of our products for other platforms is a HUGE task. It eats up lots of time and lots of money. As a result we need confidence in the platform if we’re going to embrace it. So far, despite its good points, I still don’t have confidence in Android. That could change but I’m still in a wait-and-see mode.

Palm’s WebOS: Palm is a fighter – I’ll give them that. Unfortunately, none of the things I’ve talked about in the past regarding Palm have changed, and although they are seeing moderate success with their application market, it has a long way to go before it’s a strong competitor. Like Android, I’m watching this one close but so far we haven’t committed one way or another on WebOS.

NewsBreak for <InsertYourFavoriteDevice>: We don’t have plans for other versions of NewsBreak right now but the requests keep coming in so we’re leaving our options open!

ADDED 10-21-09 eWallet Web Companion: Yes, the EWC (as we’ve taken to calling it around here) is still in the works. We ended up delaying it for a number of reasons.  The main thing that happened was eWallet for Mac/ListPro for iPhone came back in-house. The resources only stretch so far. There are other reasons as well, inluding some work going on with the normal version of eWallet that could impact the EWC (in a good way!) So yes – we still want to make this a reality but it remains in Beta for now.

I’m sure I’ve skipped things people want to know about so feel free to post them below!

Thanks!

Marc