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Symbian DevZone - Developer Profile: PsiNT
by Richard Bloor, July 15, 2003
The Polish developer PsiNT has been one of the most innovative producers of
applications for Symbian OS. This week we profile the company and have a look
at a couple of their recent products.
- Printer Friendly Version
Based in Koszalin, Poland, PsiNT Mobile Solutions (www.psiloc.com), who are
shortly changing their name to PsiLoc, was formed in 1997. Originally they
developed a set of localization products for the Psion 5 range of Epoc palmtops.
From this start they have build an eclectic range of consumer applications.
However the retail software side of their business now only accounts for about a
third of their activity according to Marek A. Filipiak, CEO. Just under half of their
business is from enterprise development, mainly for transport and data entry
applications along with OEM development for device manufacturers. The
remainder of their activity is building applications for network operators and
content providers. Interestingly almost all their business customers are based
outside Poland.
From their small start PsiNT has grown to employ approximately 25 developers
who reflect internally the international nature of the company, with developers
from the US and Middle East as well as Europe.
The portfolio of consumer products PsiNT’s has developed over the past few years
ranges for utility software such as Space Doubler and File Managers for Series 60
through to personal applications such as an Extended ToDo and Multi Media
Player. Much of this diversity has come about because PsiNT cast their net wide
in determining what the market wants. According to Jacek Lisowski, Business
Development Manager, PsiNT product research involves following community
forums, such as those at my-symbian, in addition to customer feedback received
through their email support, to identify demand for applications on Symbian OS
phones.
Two of their most interesting recent releases have been an appliance remote
control application and a “mini” GPS application.
irRemote
irRemote Control is in many ways an obvious application for a portable,
programmable devices with an infrared port, but the technical challenges of this
application are far from obvious. Michael Jipping in his book Symbian OS
Communications Programming described this as “a daunting task for all but the
hardiest of programmer.” This is because the IrDA standards implemented within
the Symbian OS use a different modulation frequency for Infrared communication
from that used in appliance remote controls. As a result the Symbian OS APIs are
of little use in developing this type of application. So PsiNT wrote a new set of
Infrared drivers for Symbian OS to create this application. “It took a while until
we figured out how to make it work like a Consumer IR,” said Marek. “It would
not have been possible without our excellent in-depth knowledge of the core of
Symbian operating system. Even then it took two months of hard work to get to
first beta version.”
The most useful form for a general purpose Infrared Control is as a learning
remote, however this adds yet another layer of complexity to what is a challenging
development. In the initial version of irRemote PsiNT found it easier to get the
application to market by creating a database of appliance control codes and build
these into the application. This initial version provides codes for over 60 brands
with support for audio, video and DVD units. Rather unsurprisingly irRemote
Control proved to be of great interest to Symbian OS phone owners with almost
13,000 downloads being made within the first four days of PsiNT announcing the
availability of a public Beta. This success rapidly lead to an enhanced version of
the software called Total irRemote which added the ability to download additional
control information in Philips Pronto CCF and Linux Lirc formats.
Mini GPS
None of the current Symbian OS phones come with built in GPS capability,
although an add-on unit is available for the Nokia 9200 Communicator range and
Bluetooth GPS units are available which could be used in conjunction with the
latest Bluetooth enabled Symbian OS phones. However the Symbian OS includes
a set of APIs which allows developers to access details about the cell site
currently in use by the phone. It is this capability which PsiNT have harnessed in
the miniGPS application. “miniGPS originated from a commercial project for a
customer who wanted location features in their application,” said Marek. “Having
built an engine for this project we realized that there could be a consumer
demand for this type of functionality so we redesigned it and made it into a retail
version.” miniGPS allows the user to harvest cell information and then organize
them into groups. Once cell information has been gathered the user can trigger
actions such as sounding an alarm, switch the phones profile, turn the phone off,
change the phone background image or send an SMS as the phone switches in or
out of a cell or group.
While building innovative software is a key ingredient to PsiNT’s success finding
the right sales channels is equally important. They use their own internet shop,
run locally in Poland it accounts for about a third of their sales. They use another
8 internet shops including Handango and Mobile2Day. The reason for using this
large number of internet shops, apart from the obvious one of ensuring their
software is widely available, is that some shops don’t provide global coverage.
Marek points out that Handango for example does not support sales to Indonesia,
which has proved to be a significant market for PsiNT.
While retail sales via the web are important to PsiNT they also recognize that the
landscape is changing. “We will be shifting our focus to provide more applications
for Network Operators and Content Providers,” said Marek. “We are also planning
to produce boxed retail products for stores for the first time.” They already have
agreements to supply software to four European operators where they are sold as
part of their downloadable software catalog. PsiNT also has distributors in the
Middle East, Germany and Czech Republic and are actively seeking more. Marek
characterizes this mixed model as “difficult” because of the complexities of
dealing with a range of conventional and electronic methods. However PsiNTs
approach has been successful. In 2001 they sold 86,000 licenses to retail
customers and last year this figure had risen to over 120,000.
The next big change for PsiNT will come in the types of software they produce.
“We plan to develop more entertainment products using native Symbian OS C++
and we also plan to start using Java,” said Marek. Indeed since talking with
Marek PsiNT have released their first game, Mind Nine, an intriguing puzzle
game.
PsiNT are intent on remaining dedicated to the Symbian OS, Jacek Lisowski
explained that they believe their strength lies in building and maintaining a high
level of knowledge about the Symbian OS. They reinforced this goal by being one
of the first software developers to become part of the Symbian Platinum Program.
“We see a very bright future as we strongly believe that Symbian is the best
smartphone operating system and it will easily outgrow any competitors,” said
Marek. “We are aiming to achieve a significant market penetration building on the
10 million Symbian OS smartphones that are expected to be sold this year.”
About the WDN Symbian Editor, Richard Bloor:
Richard Bloor is a freelance writer and editor with 18 years experience in the IT industry as a developer, analyst and latterly Project Manager with a particularly focus on software testing. Richard has been involved with the Symbian OS since 1995 and has been writing about it for the last 3 years.
Richard is also an associate with System Architecture consultancy Equinox of Wellington, New Zealand.
Richard can be reached at symbian@wirelessdevnet.com.
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