Our Company & Staff

Meet (one of) the support staff!

June 14, 2006 by Kevin

Since we now have a blog, I can introduce myself officially. I’m Kevin, and if you call or email Ilium Software for tech support, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll talk to me at some point.

I’m not just a tech support guy who provides PDA software tech support - I actually use the things I support on a regular basis. In general, Ilium “eats its own dog food” - I think that’s the saying. We use eWallet for company passwords and other super-secret things, and we use ListPro for keeping track of not-super-secret things (including many of our QA test lists, the phone support log we keep notes in while on calls, and our feature request tracker.)

I use eWallet to keep track of all my passwords and bank information (you cannot believe how cool it is to be able to call for a pizza and just flip open eWallet on the same phone and read the number right off!), and ListPro to handle my grocery list, consulting hours, and car mileage. I can’t go shopping without looking in ListPro first. This isn’t a sales blurb - I really use both products, they really help me out, and I figure it’s important for people to know that I’m not just paid to say eWallet is super cool.

I’ve been using PDAs since I was in middle school: the first one I got was some 20 dollar electronic organizer that I’d keep my homework assignments in, to the astonishment of the other 6th graders. Next was a Palm IIIx (the screen broke), Dell Axim X5, Palm Zire 31, Audiovox SMT5600, and finally a Palm Treo 650 which seems to be the best fit.

I don’t just support our products; I also help test them. As a result, my desk is a breeding ground for PDAs as you’ll see in the picture below: Back row: Dell Axim X51V, HP iPAQ 3870, iPAQ 4350, Palm Tungsten T, iMate Pocket PC, Orange SPV-e200, iPAQ 3600, Handspring Visor, Sony Clie NR70.

Front row: Palm Zire 31, Memorex U3 flash drive, Palm Treo 650, Motorola MPX-220, T-Mobile SDA, Motorola MPX-200, Palm M505, Palm Tungsten T3, Palm Zire 71, and my iPod.

The camera: Palm Treo 700w

That’s a lot of PDAs.

Price Wars by PC Makers

June 14, 2006 by Ellen

There are a bunch of news stories around this morning about Dell announcing “more aggressive pricing”. Analysts are writing about potential price wars.

Dell apparently also announced a planned improvement to its customer service and support, but either the analysts just didn’t believe it or they didn’t think it was important enough to write about. But I think a serious customer service war between Dell and anyone would be such a huge benefit to the PC users of the world.

Customer service is getting worse and worse, and Dell is one of the biggest offenders. The internet is full of Dell horror stories. I don’t know about HP’s customer service or tech support, but I’ll probably find out, as I doubt I’ll ever buy another Dell. We’ve always bought Dells here (except for the guys who build their own PCs), but after the last experience, at least I’ll never buy one again. It’s too bad - I like their PCs - but I will not support any company that treats me this badly.

We’re known for our excellent customer service and tech support. I don’t expect that level from other companies, but I do expect much more than I’m getting.

I’ve seen many discussions in the various ISP groups I read about customer service and tech support. Yes, it’s expensive, and, yes, it’s time-consuming. And yes, some of the users try hard to take advantage of it, and then everyone gets frustrated. But I really can’t see that providing bad service is the answer. And since I’m in charge, my vote is the one that counts.

The More Things Change

June 2, 2006 by Ellen

Our second product, back in 1997, was called PhoneTone. It generated touchtone sounds on a Handheld PC, so people could hold up their handhelds to a phone, and have it dial the number. This was before everyone had a cellphone (though they did exist). The program was fairly popular, given that there weren’t all that many Handheld PCs in use at the time. I’m mentioning it today, not out of nostalgia, but because I just ran into information about how to do the same thing on an iPod.

9 Years

June 2, 2006 by Ellen

I should have some profound thoughts about lasting 9 years. But I don’t.

My less-than profound thoughts are:

9 years is a long time. It probably feels a lot longer to me than it would for many people (I keep hearing people say “time flies” but around me it never does), but it’s a long time in softwareland. Especially handheld software land. We’ve outlived a lot of companies - every time I go through old papers or business cards I’m amazed at the companies who have quietly disappeared, or dropped out of the PDA market.

I have no idea what the next year will bring, except change. This has been true every anniversary (OK, every day) so far, so this isn’t anything new.

I’m sure some of what’s helped us last so long is the fabulous support from our loyal users and friends in the press, so even though this blog isn’t really public yet, I have to say thanks so much to everyone who’s helped. You know who you are.

Nice Stuff Today

June 2, 2006 by Julie

We’re getting a lot of nice coverage today:

Quite a few sites covered our anniversary sale. Just look at this list of people we have to thank for helping spread the word of our celebration: Pocket PC Thoughts, Mobility Today, SmartPhone Thoughts, Clinton Fitch, Pocket PC Magazine, Aximsite, Daily Gadget, Boston Pocket PC, Pocket Goddess, GadgetMe, Mobile Gadget News, Pocket PC Louisville, The Gadgeteer, 4WinMobile, and Geek.com.

PocketNow did a comparison of the 3 top wallet programs, in which eWallet came out on top, and which also generated some nice discussion.