This is the fourth and final part to Eten Blog dot Com’s first (and hopefully recurring) Developer Series. Thanks to all who have participated: Alex Kac from WebIs, Amit Regev from SBSH, Ellen Craw from IliumSoft, Victoria Krasilshikova from Spb Software House and the good folks over at DinarSoft. I had earlier consolidated all the questions asked by the readers in the comments and forwarded them to the developers and in this part of the series; you will get the answers you have been waiting for.

For those who have are just joining us, you might want to read Parts I, II and III to get a better overview of the whole series.

Also a quick recap, each representative will be represented by their company’s name. So you will see my questions and replies as Eten Blog, Alex Kac’s will be WebIs, Amit’s will be SBSH, Ellen’s will be Ilium, Victoria’s will be Spb and DinarSoft’s will be DinarSoft.

Eten Blog: Welcome back guys. It’s great to have you back here together once again. I was really nervous about this part of the series because I was worried I could not get the answers in time with your busy schedule and all but you really came through.

Let’s first cover software development. What would you advice a developer who is just starting out? Such as what tools, books, sites, software to look into. Or do you have any personal tips for them?

DinarSoft: We use C++ for our development, however, our advice to young developers is to try Microsoft .NET which is very easy to learn and then maybe later try to switch to C++. The best source of information will be the samples which come with the Microsoft Development Tools.

WebIs: My oldest son wants to learn how to program so I’m tackling this question right now. I think it’s more important to learn the philosophy of programming first before the mechanics. I can switch between Java, Pascal, C++, Obj-C, Basic, PHP, etc… by just learning the way the language works, but that is because I learned what programming really is and how it works. I find that the question is almost directly driven by the environment more than the language. The best beginning language is the one that you can get good tutorials for that are not OS specific. Even if its Basic or Pascal a new programmer would get much farther than if they tried to start with Java, C, VB, or other popular languages if the tutorials and teaching is good.

Eten Blog: I think you hit the nail right on the spot with that answer Alex. I think nowadays, when people want to learn something new, they tend to focus on the tools but I do agree that if they did what you suggested, they would really go far. And not just in terms of programming, but many other field as well. But in terms of preference, what language do you use?

WebIs: I personally use C++ right now.

Eten Blog: That seems like a popular choice. What about you Ellen. What does IliumSoft use?

Ilium: We use C++ for all our development. I’m not a developer, so will leave the rest of the question to the more knowledgeable people.

Eten Blog: Neither am I but I think we can start to see what is the language of choice for Windows Mobile application development. How about you Amit? Does SBSH use C++ too?

SBSH: We’re using Visual Studio 2005 for WM development and the development is done using C/C++. It’s been a long time since I’ve checked for WM programming books so I’m not completely familiar with the current latest books on WM development, but if such a book from Oreilly exists they are usually really good overall, they are fun and easy to read - as much as a programming book can get

Eten Blog: Thanks for the recommendations Amit. How about Spb?

Spb: The Spb team counts MVPs, and some Spb activists were responsible for the creation and maintenance of Pocket PC Developer Network and Smartphone Developer Network. Nowadays, Spb no longer supports either resource, but the sites go on living and have accumulated massive amounts of developer wisdom and have grown into developer communities. For developer advice, I suggest turning to them first.

Eten Blog: Those seem like very useful resources and I think budding developers reading this will benefit from all the advice given here.

Still on the topic of software development, do you have or plan to have a set of developer tools similar to what Resco has?

Spb: Spb does not comment on future plans

Eten Blog: Aww. I was hoping we would learn something. What about WebIs? Secrecy as well?

WebIs: No to secrecy but yes to the tools. We have a very powerful UI tool we called the PIGrid. But we’re not ready to release it yet due to our lack of time for documentation

SBSH: We will be releasing a first tool targeted for developers in the near future, users that like to investigate their device inner sides will also be able to use it. There are no specific plans of making this a complete set for now.

Eten Blog: That sounds really exciting Amit and Alex. I am sure many of us reading this can’t wait for their release, me included. What about the DinarSoft, IliumSoft and Spb? Any similar plans?

DinarSoft: Not really we’re not focused in this area.

Ilium: No, I think that area is very well covered already. We like to release programs that add something new, and can’t think of anything in the developer tools area that’s needed.

Eten Blog: Fair enough. So let’s move on from software development shall we and on to another topic: beta testing. Now the readers are rather familiar with WebIs’s, SBSH’s and IliumSoft’s procedures on becoming part of the beta testing program but they would like to know about Spb’s and DinarSoft’s, so if you may.

DinarSoft: We do beta testing for all our new products and updates, if you want to join our beta testing team you can send us an eMail at beta@dinarsoft.com and express your interest in helping in the beta testing (please include the current device that you have). We usually have many rounds of beta testing, we start with a small group (expert beta testers) and then in the following rounds we include other beta testers and the last stage would be the public beta testing.

Spb: Please join Spb Club, there is a lot going on there, including the beta things. We need your support.

Ilium: I think it was asked in one of the comments about our beta testing programs and while it was answered, I hope you don’t mind me bringing it up again.

Eten Blog: Sure thing Ellen, go ahead.

Ilium: Thanks. IliumSoft does conduct beta testing. There’s a form on our site; just go to http://www.iliumsoft.com/site/ilium/beta.php and fill out the form.

Eten Blog: Thanks for the heads up. Now we all know that even with beta testing, the software released tend to have bugs which need to be fixed so it’s not perfect. How do you decide when a software is ready for release?

Ilium: We do very thorough QA. We release products when we’re confident that there are no serious bugs left.

Spb: Not being a developer myself, I am limited on technical insights in the realm software production processes. But I do know that the perfect beta timing comes with experience. Professional Product Managers can play with the functionality and time to have the optimal version ready for public release.

Eten Blog: Yeah that’s true. I guess with experience, it does get easier to gauge when to release an application. What about SBSH?

SBSH: All released applications that do more than drawing “Hello World” on the screen will have a few bugs with it since there will always be new device models that bring new changes with it and other different variables that effect application operation. Usually initial closed beta versions will have a larger amount of bugs with it including sections that won’t function properly on the design level. After several beta rounds an application reach a stage when no more reports are received from the beta group which indicates the application is ready for public release.

We usually have around ~60 beta testers helping us with the closed testing of our applications before release. We are aware that there will always be additional possible bugs that might be missed by the beta group and will only be reported afterwards by our users when moving to such larger scale of users. This is the reason why you will usually see a follow-up minor release after our larger releases to include minor fixes to additional reports from our users.

Eten Blog: That sure sounds like a lot of beta testers and I do agree that new devices will always bring with it some problems to these software. Seems like never-ending work if you ask me. How about DinarSoft and WebIs?

DinarSoft: We have our own Quality Assurance team, and along with the beta testers we all decide if the version is ready to be released or not, even if we find anything in the released version, our support and development team usually work together to fix it and update the product.

WebIs: I’d just like to say something about beta-testing before I go on to my answer.

Beta testing is a hard process to deal with. On one hand you get drive-by testers that try a beta version, poo-poo it and go away or provide feedback without a willingness to further help fix the issue. On the other hand, no matter how much testing you do internally, to me its like the Matrix vs the Real World. So we’ve learned that we *have* to do public betas at times.

With that in mind, we determine it by the rising number of “Looks good to me”, and “Fixed all my issue” reports compared to a falling number of new bug reports.

Eten Blog: Yeah I guess there is no such thing as the perfect software, just something that is good enough for the users out there.

Now I have here some suggestions from the readers and I hope you could answer them if it’s alright with you. First up, why isn’t there a QWERTY hard button launcher like Standalone’s TypeRight (Palm OS)? Would you plan on creating one?

DinarSoft: Sounds like an interesting idea, maybe we’ll look into it.

WebIs: Smartphone already does this natively. On the Pocket PC most keyboards are hidden from view until needed. So I don’t think the market would be really big enough.

Ilium: I don’t know why there isn’t a QWERTY launcher - again, I’m not technical enough to know if there are reasons why one might be difficult to make.

Spb: I’m sorry but I can’t answer comment on any future plans.

Eten Blog: Great answers there. So we might see one from DinarSoft in the future. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

How about a blogging software that allows input of basic HTML? Ever considered that?

WebIs: We’ve had plans for this many times, but decided that again the market wasn’t big enough. We may reconsider when we get HTML editing in FlexMail.

Ilium: Right now we don’t have any plans to make something like that.

Spb: Again, I can’t comment on future plans. Sorry about that.

DinarSoft: Us too. No plans for something like that at the moment.

Eten Blog: I sure hope WebIs will consider this. I would really love such a software, especially when I get a Glofiish M810.

Anyway, would you consider going outside of what you normally develop for software or do you tend to want to stick with what they’ve been doing? Would you consider expanding to other areas like web and media?

SBSH: I believe that usually it is better to focus on the same niche that we are familiar with and therefore we tend to focus our activity with what we do best and with the same target applications that we know our users are looking for. Nevertheless, we try to explore new markets all the time and you can be sure that we will be presenting new initiatives that target a bit different purposes released already in the near future.

Eten Blog: This sounds intriguing. I wonder what it is. What about DinarSoft?

DinarSoft: Currently, we’re focused on system utilities and we’ve gathered a lot of experience in this domain, however, we’re looking currently into different areas and platforms.

Eten Blog: I wonder what they are. What about WebIs and IliumSoft?

WebIs: The problem with expanding is unless you’ve built up a large organization, like SPB has, you’re stretching yourself constantly.

Ilium: We’re pretty committed to information management. While I like doing new things, I also think it’s a good idea to concentrate on what we’re experienced with and good at.

Eten Blog: I do agree that unless you get bigger, it would be better to take a section and be great at it, just like you guys are.

Now the last part of the question is on Software Stores. What are you opinions on large software store (Handango) versus the smaller stores (Mobihand, ClickGamer/ClickApps)? Where do you prefer to sell your products and why?

Spb: We want for our customers to have a pleasant experience finding out about, downloading, and purchasing our software. The quality of customer experience is what dictates our choice of partners in software sales.

WebIs: We enjoy working with all of our distributors and while there are always some things we have to work through with one distributor or another, it’s really wherever the customers flock to.

SBSH: We are satisfied with all of our different partners. Each partner comes with their own special activities and agenda and it is great to see from our side how different application stores are contributing to the expansion of the market. We definitely see this as a partnership between us developers and our software distribution channels which are doing great work reaching new users and introducing new channels all the time!

DinarSoft: Handango has lots of distribution channels of its own, a huge customer base and a relation with most of the mobile phone carriers. However, we also deal with all the other re-sellers.

Ilium: The bigger distributors sell more software, but take much more of our time. The reality is that we can’t afford to sell our software on any sites where maintaining the titles (uploading, changing descriptions, making special versions) costs more than the site brings us. We’ve already discontinued one distributor recently, and I expect we’ll discontinue at least one more this year.

We always prefer to sell our products from our own site. That gives us complete control over the sale, and because we fully support the sale, it’s a much better experience for the buyer. I don’t understand why people complain about the distributors when they can almost always buy software directly from the authors’ sites. Even when we use a third-party cart, we have much more control over the sales that start from our sites.

Eten Blog: I think Ellen brought up an interesting point. With the recent increase in royalty, hopefully more and more potential buyers would go directly to the developer’s site and make the purchases there.

And finally my last question: Do you have special bundles for customers who have bought previous titles from you?

SBSH: All registered users that will browse our web-site can locate several different discounts for our applications. Our usual discount rate is 30% for users that registered any of our different applications.

Ilium: We will always give discounts to repeat buyers who ask for them. Just give us a call or send us an email.

WebIs: We are currently looking into this.

DinarSoft: No, we don’t have this, however, we send discounts in our newsletter (for subscribed customers) allowing them to purchase other titles at a discounted rate.

Spb: Well, all I can say is that we are about to release Spb Mobile Shell 2.0, and everybody who buys the current version now will qualify to a free upgrade to 2.0. It is Spb policy to give free upgrades for any products purchased within 90 days of the release of a new version.

Eten Blog: So there you have it folks. You can definitely find discounted software if you look around. We’ve come to the end…

All: Wait a minute!

Eten Blog: Did I miss something?

DinarSoft: Not really. But why not end this with a bang. Since this is your first Developer Series, let’s give away some prizes. What say you guys?

Ilium: Sure. Sounds like a great idea.

Eten Blog: What do you have in mind?

WebIs: Well how about we offer a title from our library? Any title?

SBSH: Yeah and since you have 5 developers here, you can pick 5 random winners and each winner can choose any title from our library. How’s that for a prize giveaway?

Spb: Sounds good though I would prefer to give away either Spb AirIslands or Spb BrainEvolution.

Eten Blog: Sure thing. I think that’s awesome. Since we are all agreeable, I’ll run the competition every day of the week starting from Monday, February 25^th 2008. They’ll have to check back to see how they can win though. Thanks once again guys. You’ve been really awesome!

So we’ve now finally come to the end of Eten Blog dot Com’s first Developer Series and I would like to thank the developers for donating these prizes. Hopefully we can make this an recurrent event. Thanks to all who have participated: the developers for taking time off to answer the questions and donating the prizes and you the readers, for asking the questions and reading this. I could not have done it without each and every one of you.

Until next time, have a great weekend!

Tags: Series