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Alex Kac - CEO/Founder 
Beyond the bad grammar in the title, I've had some rumblings from some people that we are dropping Windows Mobile development. I suppose its due to my grumblings and all that for which I can understand the assumption coming out. The fact is that no, we are not dropping Windows Mobile development.
So here is the absolute truth:
1) We spend more on WinMobile development than on anything else.
2) We make more on Windows Mobile than anything else
3) Looking at the next 6 months (its just stupid to plan past that) we have major investments in Windows Mobile coming.
The fact is that yes, I'm quite frustrated with the current state of Windows Mobile and mostly frustrated with HTC for writing their shells on top of Windows Mobile without ways to extend them or use them with/within our apps. I am less frustrated with Microsoft because frankly Windows Mobile is good. Its standing still which is a bit of a problem because people want new UIs and we're stuck with a decision of one of the lesser of two evils.
Its kind of common knowledge that WM7 will compete with the iPhone which means that native Win32 apps - not those with super-custom dialogs - will be able to be ported to WM7 much easier and faster and better. We aren't making our dialogs and so on so 100% custom to match the iPhone because we know that we won't have to for future Windows Mobile releases so if we did it now, we'd be wasting thousands of dollars in development for a few short months before we'd have to rewrite it all again for the next WinMobile release. For a small company like ours that's just not worth it. If we did that, our work to port to the next WinMobile would be far more than if we have true WinMobile based code.
So yes I'm frustrated with Windows Mobile. No, we're not cutting any development there. Yes, PI and FM releases are taking much longer than they used to - but that's due to the proliferation of many custom HTC devices that break things here and there and the long time it takes for us to find and fix those (if we can) as well as Smartphone and PPC testing which seems to triple the amount of work - not just double it or less.
Hope that helps!
So here is the absolute truth:
1) We spend more on WinMobile development than on anything else.
2) We make more on Windows Mobile than anything else
3) Looking at the next 6 months (its just stupid to plan past that) we have major investments in Windows Mobile coming.
The fact is that yes, I'm quite frustrated with the current state of Windows Mobile and mostly frustrated with HTC for writing their shells on top of Windows Mobile without ways to extend them or use them with/within our apps. I am less frustrated with Microsoft because frankly Windows Mobile is good. Its standing still which is a bit of a problem because people want new UIs and we're stuck with a decision of one of the lesser of two evils.
Its kind of common knowledge that WM7 will compete with the iPhone which means that native Win32 apps - not those with super-custom dialogs - will be able to be ported to WM7 much easier and faster and better. We aren't making our dialogs and so on so 100% custom to match the iPhone because we know that we won't have to for future Windows Mobile releases so if we did it now, we'd be wasting thousands of dollars in development for a few short months before we'd have to rewrite it all again for the next WinMobile release. For a small company like ours that's just not worth it. If we did that, our work to port to the next WinMobile would be far more than if we have true WinMobile based code.
So yes I'm frustrated with Windows Mobile. No, we're not cutting any development there. Yes, PI and FM releases are taking much longer than they used to - but that's due to the proliferation of many custom HTC devices that break things here and there and the long time it takes for us to find and fix those (if we can) as well as Smartphone and PPC testing which seems to triple the amount of work - not just double it or less.
Hope that helps!
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Djblois
20 October 2008 - 04:34 PM
Alex,
I know you are under a NDA, so you can't talk about it but can you say yes or no to the question - Is windows Mobile 7 much better than 6.1? just a yes or no answer?
I know you are under a NDA, so you can't talk about it but can you say yes or no to the question - Is windows Mobile 7 much better than 6.1? just a yes or no answer?
Alex Kac - CEO/Founder
20 October 2008 - 09:29 PM
I can honestly say I don't know. I have been told aspects of it for several years. But I've never been given access to it. Not to say that won't happen soon, but so far no.
Razor1973
11 November 2008 - 11:30 AM
Alex, any chance FlexMail will get ported to the Android platform? Please!
Alex Kac - CEO/Founder
11 November 2008 - 03:03 PM
It wouldn't be a port because Android is Java based. We wouldn't be able to use any of our existing MIME, SSL, IMAP, POP3, etc.. engines. We actually could port FlexMail to the iPhone quite easily since most of the code is in the engines and that's all near pure C++. But Android would be a long time.
Razor1973
12 November 2008 - 10:52 AM
Alex Kac - CEO/Founder, on Nov 11 2008, 04:03 PM, said:
It wouldn't be a port because Android is Java based. We wouldn't be able to use any of our existing MIME, SSL, IMAP, POP3, etc.. engines. We actually could port FlexMail to the iPhone quite easily since most of the code is in the engines and that's all near pure C++. But Android would be a long time.
I will take "a long time" over "never", but what is long? Please let it be less than 6 months! Come on, I've been your beta tester for what I would call a long time and that is less than 6 months.
Alex Kac - CEO/Founder
12 November 2008 - 04:31 PM
If we started today, we could get PI running on android in about 9-12 months. For FlexMail its harder. 1) Can we find Java BSD licensed classes for IMAP/POP3/SMTP, etc.? If so, we can do it a lot faster. If we can't, how about commercial classes? How much are they? Or do we have to write it from scratch? Write it from scratch - 12 months. 6 maybe if we had classes we could use.
Lets put it this way - I have no intention of even looking at Android beyond what we have already until maybe a year from now.
Lets put it this way - I have no intention of even looking at Android beyond what we have already until maybe a year from now.
Razor1973
12 November 2008 - 05:06 PM
Alex Kac - CEO/Founder, on Nov 12 2008, 05:31 PM, said:
If we started today, we could get PI running on android in about 9-12 months. For FlexMail its harder. 1) Can we find Java BSD licensed classes for IMAP/POP3/SMTP, etc.? If so, we can do it a lot faster. If we can't, how about commercial classes? How much are they? Or do we have to write it from scratch? Write it from scratch - 12 months. 6 maybe if we had classes we could use.
Lets put it this way - I have no intention of even looking at Android beyond what we have already until maybe a year from now.
Lets put it this way - I have no intention of even looking at Android beyond what we have already until maybe a year from now.
Darn it! Maybe start looking at it a year from now sounds really bad to me. More like forget FM and pray someone else builds a real e-mail client.
What about the K-9 client for Android? Isn't that proof that this could be done quickly? It was released almost right after launch and it looks just like the native E-mail (not Gmail) client and adds a couple of features. Wouldn't you be using classes provided by the Android SDK?
Alex Kac - CEO/Founder
12 November 2008 - 05:46 PM
First - I really have little interest in Android today. So that's the first understanding. I am not that interested in Android today. Maybe when it matures, but today its got way too many question marks and I am not interested in wasting my development time and money as it would be - I can guarantee that. More on that later.
Second, I have only done cursory looks at Android SDK. I do not know if it has those classes or not - even if it did, they may not be that full-featured forcing me to the same position. I do not know. I don't have a lot of time on my hands and so I've only done very cursory looks into the SDK.
Second since the SDK has been around for almost a year, its not a surprise that some people were able to create and finish an app by now. K-9 is not proof it can be done quickly. I can build an email client on Windows Mobile in about 3 days if I used the existing APIs in Windows Mobile for email. 3 days! But since it would be based on the APIs in the WinMobile SDK it wouldn't DO more than what those API's gave me abilities for. I want to add IMAP IDLE to it. oops. can't do that. How about per folder synch? No? Or HTML downloads on WM5 device? No? The APIs in the SDK only get you so far for things like that. So yeah, I could probably build something like K-9 within a few weeks. But then the moment I wanted to differentiate myself by adding more capable features I'm now stuck with a 6 month delay between 1.0 and 2.0 because I have to write my own engine or find one I can use. Believe me, its far better to just do it right the first time. We learned that lesson with FlexMail originally. Now granted Android is a bit different because its open source if it had the APIs I could take the source to those APIs and then compile them in my own app and improve them - but still we're talking a large amount of work.
Now why am I so down on Android? It comes down to business. Right now 90% of our income comes from PI for WinMobile. That income is paying for development of PI for BB, PI for iPhone, etc... FM pays for itself on WM. So for me to do FM on Android, I'd have to sell more PI. Which in today's climate is very hard. PIBB is doing well, but it hasn't payed for its 1 year dev and continuing dev yet at all. PI for iPhone obviously isn't paying anything right now. How many "in development" things can I pay for at once? Add yet another? Sorry, no. For me to do anything Android right now would require outside investment. Think about it - in one year we've from being WinMobile only to WinMobile, BlackBerry, and iPhone. That takes a lot of cash and time. And you don't make that back in one week or one month. Especially not if you're continuing to invest in those areas at the same time.
Second, even if I had funds to devote to Android development I'm really not that interested today. I've worked with Android devices and people around here who have them. Its buggy. Its still in a lot of flux. Lots of stuff is going to change. That's a great environment for quick, not too difficult to write apps like Note2Self, but really not the best environment for apps like FlexMail and PI. Second, there are far less users of the device. The market is not even close to being sustainable for these kind of apps. Sure for small quicksies, but not ours. True in a year or two there will be more phones, more networks and so on, but you know - you can't try to "get in" on every new opportunity every time when 2/3rd of these "opportunities" fail to deliver. You have to pick and choose. I personally do not have a lot of faith for Android in the short term. Long term is quite open. Its got the potential.
So the summary is - WebIS is not inclined to be an Android producing company today. I believe that for small quick ports or new apps Android is great, but otherwise its a distraction that's not needed for us right now. If today was like 2003/2004 during the good times market-wise - then I might have made a different decision.
Second, I have only done cursory looks at Android SDK. I do not know if it has those classes or not - even if it did, they may not be that full-featured forcing me to the same position. I do not know. I don't have a lot of time on my hands and so I've only done very cursory looks into the SDK.
Second since the SDK has been around for almost a year, its not a surprise that some people were able to create and finish an app by now. K-9 is not proof it can be done quickly. I can build an email client on Windows Mobile in about 3 days if I used the existing APIs in Windows Mobile for email. 3 days! But since it would be based on the APIs in the WinMobile SDK it wouldn't DO more than what those API's gave me abilities for. I want to add IMAP IDLE to it. oops. can't do that. How about per folder synch? No? Or HTML downloads on WM5 device? No? The APIs in the SDK only get you so far for things like that. So yeah, I could probably build something like K-9 within a few weeks. But then the moment I wanted to differentiate myself by adding more capable features I'm now stuck with a 6 month delay between 1.0 and 2.0 because I have to write my own engine or find one I can use. Believe me, its far better to just do it right the first time. We learned that lesson with FlexMail originally. Now granted Android is a bit different because its open source if it had the APIs I could take the source to those APIs and then compile them in my own app and improve them - but still we're talking a large amount of work.
Now why am I so down on Android? It comes down to business. Right now 90% of our income comes from PI for WinMobile. That income is paying for development of PI for BB, PI for iPhone, etc... FM pays for itself on WM. So for me to do FM on Android, I'd have to sell more PI. Which in today's climate is very hard. PIBB is doing well, but it hasn't payed for its 1 year dev and continuing dev yet at all. PI for iPhone obviously isn't paying anything right now. How many "in development" things can I pay for at once? Add yet another? Sorry, no. For me to do anything Android right now would require outside investment. Think about it - in one year we've from being WinMobile only to WinMobile, BlackBerry, and iPhone. That takes a lot of cash and time. And you don't make that back in one week or one month. Especially not if you're continuing to invest in those areas at the same time.
Second, even if I had funds to devote to Android development I'm really not that interested today. I've worked with Android devices and people around here who have them. Its buggy. Its still in a lot of flux. Lots of stuff is going to change. That's a great environment for quick, not too difficult to write apps like Note2Self, but really not the best environment for apps like FlexMail and PI. Second, there are far less users of the device. The market is not even close to being sustainable for these kind of apps. Sure for small quicksies, but not ours. True in a year or two there will be more phones, more networks and so on, but you know - you can't try to "get in" on every new opportunity every time when 2/3rd of these "opportunities" fail to deliver. You have to pick and choose. I personally do not have a lot of faith for Android in the short term. Long term is quite open. Its got the potential.
So the summary is - WebIS is not inclined to be an Android producing company today. I believe that for small quick ports or new apps Android is great, but otherwise its a distraction that's not needed for us right now. If today was like 2003/2004 during the good times market-wise - then I might have made a different decision.
Razor1973
12 November 2008 - 10:06 PM
Alex, I fully understand your position as a company. Thank you for taking the time to explain all this. If I were to make a prediction on this, though, I have a feeling Android will grow and mature so quickly, WebIS will see this and start looking into building applications for the platform in less than 6 months. PI first, most likely. We'll talk then and I'll remind you of this article. 
Alex Kac - CEO/Founder
12 November 2008 - 10:13 PM
Well remember for years people asked us to do BlackBerry. We didn't because it wasn't the wrong time. At some point we may do Android, but we'll watch it. I hope Android does well. But you know everyone was clamoring for us to do Smartphone support. 10x devices being sold over PPC. Microsoft was pushing hard for us to do that. We finally did. And sales for SP software is 1/10th of PPC software. Not just me - its almost everyone.
So its not just a matter of Android growing and maturing. Software sales is the big thing. Right now Android software sales are a bit of a disappointment.
So its not just a matter of Android growing and maturing. Software sales is the big thing. Right now Android software sales are a bit of a disappointment.
Razor1973
13 November 2008 - 08:44 AM
People don't normally think about paying when they think Android or Android apps.
Alex Kac - CEO/Founder
13 November 2008 - 09:49 AM
We'll have to see how it all works out over the next year. Philosophically I want to do Android apps. I like Android. But the business case is not there yet. That's why my interest in it right now is nil.
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