Our Company & Staff

So apparently there’s this new game among bloggers where someone “tags” another blogger. If you’re tagged, you have to post 5 facts about yourself that most people don’t know, and then tag 5 other bloggers. I just got tagged by spmwinkel at solsie.com who had been tagged by Patrick from JustAnotherMobileMonday.

OK, this is going to be pretty easy, and fun. First, the interesting people I tag are:

Dan Hanttula a hugely interesting person who has more credentials than I’ll even try to list.

Hal Goldstein, editor-in-chief of Pocket PC and Smartphone Magazine.

Jen Edwards, the Pocket Goddess, which title I wish I could have.

My good buddy and sometime competitor Alex Kac (I hope this counts; he calls it a blog though it’s a blog in a forum format).

Howard Tomlinson, founder and CEO of Astraware.

And 5 things about me, in no particular order, are:

One, I’m in the small group of people who are huge fans of musicals. Oddly enough, both Dan and Hal, above, are also in that group, so when I write them that I’m going on vacation to watch people kill people while singing, they know just what I’m talking about.

Two, I am one of the original founders of Ilium Software, which, to a large extent, I started because I didn’t want to work for anyone any more. It’s managed to keep me out of a “real” job for over 9 years, which I’m pretty happy about.

Three, I got interested in mobile computing when I worked at what’s now AT+T, and they handed me a Newton and sent me to the first (and, I think, only) Newton Developers’ Conference. I think I still have the t-shirt, though the Newton was stolen in a break-in at our “headquarters” at the time. (Working at AT+T was a big factor in convincing me that I never wanted to work for anyone again.)

Four, I am also involved with Bits du Jour, a one-deal-a-day site for Windows and PDA software.

And five, I consider the name “Ilium Software” as my biggest business mistake. Here’s what I learned: never, never, never start a company or a website with the letters i L i. Or even i L, or L i unless it’s a really well-known word. Nobody can distinguish ili from illi from lli from lil in those little tiny fonts without serifs. Ilium is Greek for Troy – I was working in Troy, Michigan at the time, and liked the sound of the name Ilium, but never thought about the readability issue until it was way, way too late. It’s not my biggest life mistake, but definitely a candidate for the bad company name awards.

Marc Tassin, our Product Manager (who introduced himself here a while ago) has just had a story published in a real book! The book is called Furry Fantastic, and Marc’s contribution is a very entertaining and well-written story about … well, I’m not going to say what it’s about. If you want to read it, you’ll have to pick up the book yourself. And if you do, be sure to read Marc’s description of himself at the end.

Again, congratulations Marc!

Not, as you might think, that some guy in the street tried to strike up a conversation, but that Randy Eisenmen, Handango’s CEO, for some reason decided to lift me up about 2 feet when he gave me the Handango Champion Award we won for eWallet. To say I was shocked doesn’t even begin to cover it – no one has tried that in many years. Apparently I looked so freaked out that he had to send someone over to ask if I was OK (I was fine. I was worried about him – I was having visions of him falling over, and seeing headlines like “Ilium Software Exec Kills Handango CEO”. I’m short, but I’m really not all that small). Anyway, it was lots of fun. Someone asked Randy why he’d picked me up (everyone else just got hugs or handshakes) and he was blaming Ken Landau from LandWare, who won the award before ours (congratulations, Ken), but I’m pretty sure that was just an excuse. If companies get their personalities from their CEOs, I can certainly see why Handango is so high-energy.

Of course I was delighted that eWallet was again recognized by the judges as one of the top mobile apps (and by the user community as being worth the nomination). And of course I was overjoyed that InScribe (which we’ll be releasing this month) was picked by the judges of the UMPC contest as one of the 3 best programs submitted for the UMPC. Both Marc and I are really excited by the UMPCs, and very happy that InScribe was recognized. And now that we’ve won another UMPC (courtesy of Microsoft, thank you to them), I might actually get a chance to use it.

The whole Summit was lots of fun – thanks, everyone at Handango. I got to meet some very interesting people, catch up with some old friends, and even listen to a few presentations. As well as eat and drink too much. Everything made it back, including the new hardware, all the swag (what was that thing from Verizon?) and of course the Champion Award, which is now in its place of honor on our awards bookcase. It’s a good thing my suitcase expands, but not so good that I do.

Once again, many thanks to Handango, the sponsors and the judges.

Hi everyone! The blog has been a bit slow lately because we’ve been working feverishly on that UMPC product we talked about before (along with the updates to eWallet and ListPro that we’ve got in the works!) But the UMPC work is done, the beta is complete, and the final version should be out soon! We’ll be sure to let everyone know when it goes out.

A week from now I’m heading to California for the Handango Summit and the CTIA Wireless show. If you’re a blog watcher here and plan to attend either of those, let me know. I’d love to meet you and say “hi!”

And for all of our non-US readers, this coming Monday is Labor Day here so Ilium Software will be closed as we all take a nice 3-day weekend to kick back and recover from the big UMPC push! (And for all of our US readers, have a great Labor Day!)