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The WDN Symbian DevZone... A Look at Symbian OS software for the 9200 series from Alchemy
by Richard Bloor, August 26, 2002
Malaysian company Alchemy develops Symbian OS software for the 9200 series
and 7650 under the brand name Ximplify. This week we profile this forward
thinking developer and look at how they hope to transition from a personal
software package vendor to Telco partner.
Alchemy was formed in 1996 principally to bring the Psion range of PDAs and
Industrial handhelds into Malaysia. Brother and sister team Victor Liew, the
Managing Director, and Angelyn Liew, the Chief Financial Officer, were motivated
by a belief that there was significant scope for the development of real mobile
computing, however the laptops available at that time were too expensive, bulky
and had poor battery life.
Building on the distributorship Alchemy also started developing mobile
applications, initially for the Series 3 range and then subsequently on the Series
5 range. Targeting medium sized companies, where the existing IT infrastructure
might be limited and the cost of technology a major concern, Alchemy
concentrated on delivering end to end solutions.
The applications developed by Alchemy have broadly covered three areas,
Financial, Field Sales & Service and Electoral. A good example of their off-line
mobile applications is the Electronic Agent System (eAsy) on the Psion 5mx,
developed for the largest unit trust company in Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur Mutual
Fund Berhad. The application allows the agents, amongst other things, to
instantly access details of their individual clients’ investment details including
holdings, performance and reminders to increase investments. It also provides
the ability to carry out financial planning in a structured manner that is easily
understood by potential customers. The 300 plus agents get data updates on a
monthly basis at the company’s various branches through out Malaysia.
While their early applications on the Psions were mobile, requiring connection to
a PC to update information, Alchemy have recently developed their first wireless
application. The Wireless Job and Time Tracking System is an encrypted SMS
based application running on the Nokia 9210. This application was showcased at
the recent Nokia Developer’s Conference at CommunicAsia 2002 in Singapore.
The primary reason for showcasing the system was to demonstrate to Telcos and
corporations how easily wireless can be used for enterprise applications without
concern for the underlying technology, such as SMS or GPRS. The application is
simple to use, the field worker taps the spacebar to find out job details, taps the
spacebar to indicate the start of the job and again taps the spacebar to indicate
the job is complete. The field office meanwhile is informed via SMS of the job
progress details such as time worked, which are then used to determine the
allocation of future work and judge the service levels achieved.
Ximplify was created in November 2001. It is part of a long-term strategy by
Alchemy to address the wireless market. Two key factors, one business and one
technical, influenced their decision to develop for the Symbian OS, given they
have experience of all of the three main wireless operating systems. Firstly
Alchemy identified that there were only a limited number of software companies
developing for the Symbian OS, maybe as few as five with a broad product range,
including companies such as Epocware and PsiNT. The second driver was
technology. Victor feels that the Palm OS has a limited life, even with the
development of version 5, while Pocket PC applications are hampered by the poor
performance of the operating system, even on machines with powerful processors.
In addition the Symbian OS was perceived as the only one which really offered
the opportunities to enter into the telecoms space. Victor believes that within
Malaysia the few Pocket PC phones available are selling very poorly and the range
of product powered by Symbian OS offers a much more attractive consumer
proposition.
In many ways Ximplify is a learning process for Alchemy. Learning how to deal
with the large wireless carriers and learning how to identify application
requirements in the wireless space. When they initially contemplated launching
Ximplify there was considerable debate about the first application they should
develop. The choice was between what is now myList, a hierarchical note
management application and another product tentatively called myLife, similar to
ActiveDesk, an application from Irish based software house Cibenix. ActiveDesk
brings together calendar and messaging information into a single screen and
provides the ability to schedule message collection from dial-up mail accounts.
Their choice of myList was made on the basis of their PDA background and Victor
admits that with hindsight they should probably have gone for the myLife
application. This is an important lesson they have learnt; the PDA space is not
the same as the wireless space. Victor notes that “the owner of a smartphone is
using it mainly for voice, a lot for messaging and a bit for other applications, we
now realize that we need to concentrate on applications which address the
messaging use of these devices”. The other factor, which they are realizing is
important, is that significant sales will only come from being able to create
solutions that have an appeal to the wireless carriers. Here myList is of limited
interest to the carriers it does little to enhance the user’s wireless traffic, but this
will now be addressed in future variants of myList.
So over the next 18 months Victor sees Ximplify as a mechanism for Alchemy to
develop a recognized Symbian OS software brand, allow them to gain experience
in gauging what the market wants and leveraging into the telecom space.
When it came to marketing and selling software Victor had started to work on
relationships with a number of the independent Symbian web sites who were
planning electronic stores such as AllAboutER6 and the now defunct
SmartPhoneUser. The reasoning behind the strategy was two fold. Firstly, he felt
that these sites provided a great service for the infant Symbian smartphone
community. Secondly he expected the traffic that these sites generated, as their
visitors were the natural customers for Symbian applications, would be
significant. However the sales from these types of sites have been disappointing.
The one place that has worked and well is Handango. It has been easy to get
software listed and sales have been robust, Victor suspects that it is because
there is reluctance on the part of many potential purchasers to use the smaller
web sites which may not have established reputations.
Nokia have also been, in Victor’s opinion, very proactive in assisting in marketing
software. The CD that is included in the 9290 retail package includes evaluation
copies of all the Ximplify 9200 series applications. Similarly the CD
accompanying the 7650, when it is launched in the Asia Pacific, will contain an
evaluation version of Ximplify myShopping. Victor has not felt that seeking Nokia
OK status for the Ximplify applications is worthwhile at present, as it is expensive
and the sales volume do not currently justify the cost. He feels the money and
time is better spent on trying to come up with innovative solutions.
From a technical perspective the Ximplify development is looking at building
applications using a modular approach, so their SeleQ product for the 7650 is
also the framework for future 7650 developments. Similarly Ximplify’s myList
has a powerful underlying database engine which was used for the Wireless Job
and Time Tracking System and Ximplify’s myShopping for the 7650. Clock It,
their latest 9200 product, has resulted from their developers learning about the
clock mechanisms within Symbian OS, knowledge they will apply to future
applications.
The change in the way Symbian OS is being commercially developed has also had
an effect. While Symbian had always been open about the full capabilities of the
operating system, Nokia have been more guarded. While Victor recognizes that
this is in part due to the vendors protecting their unique brand through the
phones look and feel, it has also created restrictions in other areas. For example,
one feature they are adding to the next version of myList is the ability to create an
export to Symbian Word documents, however Nokia are not open about the APIs
and the development was not straightforward.
Victor also expects to develop software for the SonyEricsson P800, but find their
approach to date rather strange, effectively limiting the access to the SDKs by
charging a significant amount for a development tool and support. Although not
an issue for Alchemy, Victor believes that a significant proportion of existing third
party development for the Symbian OS originates from small developers who find
a product niche and form a company to exploit it. While providing free SDKs will
create competition for current developers, Alchemy included, Victor feels that it is
necessary in order to create a vibrant Symbian community. The by-product of
this would be the telecom companies use this economy as a business case for
their wireless strategies rather than being limited to MMS and Java.
The unique nature of wireless developers also creates difficulties in expanding,
something Victor thinks contributes to the current situation where development
is largely undertaken by small developers as opposed to large Symbian software
development companies. Victor is seeing that the majority of available
development resource has limited C++ skills, generally Visual Basic and Java are
the most common language skills. Even those with C++ are not yet thinking of
the wireless space as one in which to work, as they really only seeing
development for the PC world. In addition the nature of wireless development
needs a special type of developer capable of thinking within the constraints on
processor, memory, screen real estate, something of a geek in Victor’s view. A tall
order!
Given the nature of wireless industry, Victor is slightly pessimistic about the
richness of future wireless applications, whether for the Symbian sphere or the
competing operating systems. Time to market is now critical as the life cycle of a
phone is generally only about six months. Profits from the development of a
particular application for a specific phone will have to be realized very quickly
and products will not have time to mature. This problem is unavoidable but
Victor believes that the phone vendors need to recognize it by releasing the SDKs
earlier.
Victor characterized Alchemy’s approach as “pigheaded”, willing to get out there
and give it a go. The wireless application economy is still young and success will
come to those who are willing to experiment and take risks while having a clear
vision of their company’s future. Victor is planning on Alchemy and their brand
Ximplify being one of these successful innovators.
About the WDN Symbian Editor, Richard Bloor:
Richard Bloor has 16 years experience in the IT industry. His earlier
work was largely in design and development of commercial and
manufacturing systems but more recently has focused on
development and test management of government systems.
Richard Bloor is the Mobile Applications champion at System
Architecture consultancy Equinox of Wellington, New Zealand.
Richard can be reached at rbloor@wirelessdevnet.com.
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