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The WDN Symbian DevZone... Symbian Developer Profile - Cibenix
by Richard Bloor, September 23, 2002
This week Richard profiles Cibenix the developers of the best selling Active Desk
software for the Nokia 9200 series and Nokia 7650 and talks to Garry McCollum
about the developing smartphone market.
Symbian Developer Profile; Cibenix... Based in Dublin Ireland, Cibenix (www.cibenix.com) was formed in 2001 by Garry
McCollum. Garry, who has worked for several major IT consultancies, including
Accenture and IBM, in the area of systems integration, had always had a personal
interest in the wireless arena. With the launch of the Nokia 9210 Garry felt that
the technology was reaching a practical level where the wireless data capabilities
of these new phones could be harnessed for consumer and corporate
applications. He bought a Nokia 9210 and after using the phone identified a
product which he believed would enhance the users experience.
This product was Active Desk. Active Desk is a front-end to the calendar, to-do
and messaging functionality that brings all this information into one summary
view. The user can then interact with this information directly from Active Desk.
The product also includes the ability to schedule message retrieval.
Garry originally worked alone to develop Active Desk and launched it in 2001.
Active Desk for the Nokia 9210 has been a very popular application, certainly
earning "best seller" status in the Symbian OS add-on application market. It also
won in the enhanced productivity tools category of the 2002 Nokia Mobile
Challenge. Active Mail, which provides advanced email management
functionality, was added to the product range in 2002.
When the Nokia 7650 was announced Cibenix started re-architecting Active Desk
for Series 60. "With Active Desk we had created an application that was basically
taking over the user desktop and creating a new primary interface," Garry notes.
"We knew that the Nokia 7650 would be a mass market phone, so when we came
to rebuild Active Desk we realized that there was an opportunity to create an
application that would allow operators to brand the phone not only as Nokia but
also as a Vodafone or Orange phone for example." This resulted in the release of
both consumer editions of Active Desk and Active Mail for the Nokia 7650 but
also an operator version called Access Point. "Access Point will allow operators to
interact with their customers, send them promotions and do branding" said Garry
"and we believe will become a significant differentiater for the operators."
This activity means that Cibenix has now grown to 5 permanent staff. In addition
there are a number of ex-colleagues and friends who are assisting with specific
activities, such as market research and business development. The timing of
further growth is a major strategic decision for Cibenix due to the current
uncertainty in the telecoms industry and the lead-time for smartphone handsets
to achieve widespread acceptance from consumers.
With the development of Access Point Garry sees Cibenix continuing their focus
on consumer products but moving the emphasis on the sales channel towards
network operators. However over the next 12 to 24 months, as the penetration of
Symbian OS smartphones builds, Garry sees greater emphasis being given to
business orientated software. While Garry expects more forward thinking
operators to react sooner, he believes that as smartphone penetration grows,
most operators will recognize the value of a product like Access Point.
In developing for the Symbian OS Cibenix have come up against a common
problem voiced by several developers. The Symbian OS development environment
is relatively new and there are issues with documentation, which is lacking in
several areas. Paid support was also an issue early on due to the cost relative to
the size of the company. Although Symbian did show considerable flexibility in
meeting Cibenix’s needs, the cost of support meant that Cibenix’s developers
delved deeply into the OS. However Garry does see an upside, it provides
Cibenix, now they have developed a portfolio of Symbian OS knowledge, with a
significant advantage over other companies who may be thinking of moving into
the Symbian space.
This early position in the market has also meant that Cibenix has been able to
build relationships with major vendors, such as Symbian and Nokia, in a way
that would have been very difficult if they had been developing in the Palm or
Microsoft space.
Many of the reviews for Active Desk have commented that this application is so
useful that they don't understand why this type of functionality was not included
as standard in the Nokia phones. This highlights a risk for small developers who
create innovative applications in a marketplace where significantly larger
companies control the operating system. The danger is that the larger companies
move into the smaller company’s space, something that has been a criticism of
Microsoft for a number of years. Garry does not believe there is the same risk
with Symbian. "We have a good relationship with Nokia and Symbian, both are
very keen to encourage third party developers and moving into their space would
not send a good message. I expect that the other Symbian Licensees would have
a similar attitude. I consider our biggest threat being the larger software houses
currently developing for Palm or Pocket PC. However we have a significant
advantage over these organizations. We have gone through the development
learning curve and can now concentrate keeping our applications ahead by
adding and improving functionality and obviously using legal protection like
patents where possible."
Cibenix have also seen good interest and support from both Symbian and Nokia.
"Since the Mobile Challenge we have had good interaction with Nokia, they have
been positive in assisting us with things like early access to prototype handsets"
said Garry "I believe Nokia really do see the value in building the independent
developer community and are clearly putting a lot of effort into it."
Cibenix are currently concentrating on marketing Access Point to network
operators. They will also be looking for additional functionality that can be
integrated with both the commercial and retail products, such as Instant
Messaging.
Garry believes that the Symbian based smartphones are going to be successful in
the consumer market. "The majority of buyer who go into a mobile store will look
on a Nokia as a phone, a relatively familiar device, while something like a Palm or
iPac will seem complex and technical, undoubtedly for someone they would
consider to be a geek.” said Garry. “However there is still the risk that they will
be overawed by the phones capabilities. Active Desk and Access Point we believe
will simplify the experience for this type of user, while offering advanced features
for the power user.” Garry believes that the corporate market is less clear cut.
“We are committed to Symbian but if the opportunity or need arises we will look
at migrating our technology to other operating systems.”
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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