Handheld and Mobile World

Any Mobile Masterminds?

February 18, 2008 by Ellen

Several years ago, we registered MobileMasterMind.com, intending to make a general info/help kind of site for mobile device info. Like too very many of our good intentions, we never got around to doing anything about it, and our ownership of the domain is expiring this week.

I was going to let it expire, but Marc suggested that someone who reads this blog might want it, so if anyone does, post a reply here saying so by Wednesday of this week. I’ll renew it for a year and transfer it to anyone interested. If more than one person is interested, I’ll let Julie pick who gets it using her secret random winner picking method.

And don’t forget that part 3 of Eten Blog dot Com’s Developer Interview series is now online. It was originally designed to be a 3-part article, but there’s going to be at least one set of followup questions as well.

Developer Series Part II Published

February 11, 2008 by Ellen

If you’re interested in mobile development, check out the interview with representatives of a few of the major mobile developers being published by Tariq at Eten Blog dot Com. The interview is being published in 4 parts - Part II went live yesterday, and provoked some really interesting comments. Read it here.

Monday* Morning Mobile Miscellany

February 5, 2008 by Ellen

*(I wrote this Monday. I’m publishing it Tuesday because we updated our blog software yesterday, and couldn’t publish new articles.)

A few related posts and articles I found interesting this morning:

Users’ Bad Habits Invite Malware, Forum Says. I have very mixed feelings about this. I’m a huge fan of being careful. I drown boxes of old business cards rather than just throwing them out, shred everything with anyone’s info on it, even things like holiday cards, and have told my favorite aunt she’s not allowed to send me email until she learns the difference between CC: and BCC:. But I’m not a fan at all of the “blame the users” approach to problems, which I think is much too prevalent among technical people. Yes, people are afraid of change, as the article says, but with good reason. Who hasn’t installed or upgraded some software, only to find their PC not working as well, or not working at all? And who believes that even the most conscientious use of security software and techniques is going to stop all the malware? Not me.

People should practice good security - absolutely. But that alone isn’t going to be enough. The internet infrastructure, particularly email, has to change. And I’d love to see installed software behaving a lot better as well.

But speaking of practicing good security, Marc sent me a fun page describing why Passwords are like Underwear. I particularly liked the illustrations. Maybe I’ll send it to my aunt.

And, finally, getting back to mobile, Tariq at Eten Blog dot Com is publishing a very in-depth interview he did with representatives of a few of the major mobile developers. The interview will be published in 4 parts (it’s long) - the first one is online here. Check it out if you’re interested!

Dusting Off the Crystal Ball

January 24, 2008 by Ellen

Before January gets completely away from me, I thought I’d put out some predictions for the mobile software world in 2008. Here’s the obligatory disclaimers - these are my opinions only, and do not (as the movies say) reflect the views or opinions of Ilium Software. Or anyone else. They’re just about mobile software and content, not anything useful like the stock market or lottery numbers. And I’ll freely admit I’m not the best predictor, despite our nice crystal ball with Jeff Hawkins’ signature.

1 - The iPhone SDK will make less of a difference to our businesses (and by “our”, I mean the mobile software companies) than we hope. My guess is that Apple will exercise a lot more control over how apps are installed, made available, and priced than we (again, we being the software makers) would like. Like they did with the iPod apps, I believe that Apple will choose which third-party programs they want to deliver through iTunes, and control the pricing. iPhone apps - especially games - will be popular, but developers dreaming of huge profits and revenues will end up disappointed.

2 - The big mobile software portals (Motricity and Handango) will significantly change, and be less of a presence in software distribution. It’s been clear to me for a while that software isn’t what Motricity (owner of PocketGear, PalmGear and Smartphone.net) is very interested in. For a while, I thought they’d drop software completely, but after thinking more about it, I guess I don’t really believe that. But I do think we’ll see less and less energy and activity on Motricity’s software sites. And while I hope Handango doesn’t follow their example, I’m afraid they will. The smaller software distribution sites like MobiHand and Handmark will try to fill the space that the two bigger companies are leaving, but I doubt that they’ll be able to without getting a lot more backing and resources.

3 - Palm OS will continue to lose market share, to the point where it’s a non-presence. Even its biggest fans among the mobile community seem to have written them off by now, and the company as a whole just keeps making decisions no one understands. I know that there are a few people who think Palm will stage a big comeback like Apple did, but I think that Palm will focus more and more on their Windows Mobile devices and phase out Palm OS entirely. Or just go under. I hope they prove me wrong.

4 - A lot of new mobile software and content sites will launch and then fail. This happens every year, but I think it’s going to be even more common in 2008. Too many people think that mobile software and content is going to be a big new market, and then jump in as a distributor or developer and finding out that being successful is nowhere near as easy as they thought. We’ve seen a number of sites crash and burn, or just fizzle away, and I’m pretty sure we’ll see a lot more. You need knowledge, background and experience to be successful in mobile software. A good idea, even with funding behind it, just isn’t enough.

5 - More partnerships and mergers. I’m guessing there will be more partnerships and mergers among the established mobile software companies. We’ve seen a little of it already - Handmark buying Astraware, our working with WebIS to combine eWallet and FlexWallet - and I think that 2008 will see much more.

6 - Customer support will get worse. I hate this one, but I believe it. More and more of the distributors and resellers are no longer giving the developers any information about the purchasers of their software. So while we (specifically Ilium Software, but I know other companies as well) pride ourselves on providing really excellent support, if you call us and say you bought eWallet through a third-party store and lost your installation file, we may not have a record of your purchase. We’ll do everything we can to try to find it, or help you find your something that proves your purchase, but we won’t always be able to validate a purchase using an email or a name like we used to. The good news is that we do still have the info from any purchase made from through our site (using either our direct or HCE carts), and that will not change, this or any other year.

7 - Web-based apps will become more and more prevalent, for mobile as well as desktop use. This one’s pretty much a no-brainer, but it seems worth a mention.

Looking back over this, it sounds like I’m pessimistic about the future. I’m really not. Mobile software has always been a hard market to be successful in, but we’ve managed it for over 10 years now, and so have several other companies. The mobile area changes quickly, and while it probably has more challenges than desktop or web development, it’s also a lot more interesting and more fun. I’m really looking forward to what 2008 brings.

Our Partner Store is Open

December 3, 2007 by Ellen

We’ve just started selling a few partner products - titles developed and maintained by other companies. You may have seen other of the mobile sites doing this already, and you’ll probably see more over the next few months. We’re still a pretty small industry, and at least some of us are trying to work more closely together and give each others’ titles some extra exposure and sales. Plus, like Amazon selling shoes and hairdryers (both of which I’ve bought from them recently), we’re hoping that our featuring other titles will make it easier for visitors to find what they want, even if we don’t make it ourselves.

The support for any partner products on our site will be provided by the company that makes it - PocketInformant by WebIS, 1-Calc by OmegaOne, etc. - but we’re only selling titles that we know are well supported, and that we know we can always reach the author of. The sales will go through the Handango engine that’s the backend for our own title’s store as well.

It’s an experiment - if it doesn’t work well for us, for our visitors, and for the other titles’ authors, we’ll take it down. If it does, we’ll add more titles. We’ll never turn into a big software portal - believe me that we’ll never turn into a big software portal - but we’re hoping we can expand just a little and help our visitors as well as ourselves and our friends.

Mobile Software in an Always Connected World

November 28, 2007 by Marc

No matter how badly some folks hate them, the terms “Web 2.0” and “Web OS” just won’t go away. For many, these are the holy grail of software development…a multi-platform single language environment that allows instant upgrades with no downloads, making software available to the customer from any connected device. For others, the terms are empty promises or overused marketing phrases that never seem to live up to expectations.

But consider this. A recent survey discovered the following:

“The survey, which polled 2,062 adults in July and October, found that 79 percent of adults – about 178 million – go online, spending an average 11 hours a week on the Internet.” - Reuters

With numbers like these, the old argument that “not everyone has access” no longer applies. The internet is now an ever present, vital part of American society. And with the proliferation of affordable all-you-can-download data plans, the mobile world is latching onto the web like never before.

As the Senior Product Manager here at Ilium Software, I need to look at things like this and ask myself “What does this mean for us?”, “What is the future for ‘on device’ applications?”, and “How can we keep doing what we do best…helping our customers to stay organized?”

Fortunately, Ilium Software has answers to these and many more questions. We’re excited and very optimistic about the future of our market. What I’d love to hear, however, is what YOU think. What do you see in the future for Mobile Device Software? How are you using the web with your mobile device? What can we offer or do that will help you to stay organized as the world of mobile devices evolves?