The Recursive ISV

A while back I blogged here about good user interface design in If You Don’t Love It Don’t Release It, and I’ve mentioned a few times about releasing early and that I believe you should.  I’m writing this post to expand on these two things a little.

Releasing early is something that was intrinsically avoided by most and indeed frowned upon by many, yet it has become the battle cry of the mISV (and ISV’s!).  It’s based on the premise that if you keep coding to perfection with a complete feature set you will never, or at least take a long time, to release *anything*.

Steve Jobs (Apple) famously is supposed to have said: “Artists ship”.  I think it applies to all of us. 

What’s the point if nobody sees it and it’s not out there performing its function?  Until a product is released it’s a theory, no more and vapourware at best.  Trust me - I have a Bachelor in Vapourware and doing my best to avoid a Doctorate! 

Another big no no trumpeted at us for decades, it seems, is that you shouldn’t write a product that has established competitors.  This is bunk.  It’s a generalization.  Copying what someone else has done is clearly lame, but competing with a new product is completely logical and unavoidable in almost every instance.  As always there are exceptions.

Recently I had the pleasure to try out a brand spanking new product by a new mISV.  While the developer and owner of IceTips Software is no newcomer to writing code or even being independent he’s certainly new to embracing the more recent and modern drive behind what has been called “Web 2.0” (which tends to be applied to anything and everything these days) or what I prefer to call “Bootstrapping Common Sense.” 

It would seem he’s taken on what he’s learned and applied it well.  It’s to soon for him to be a roaring success, or even a little bit successful (product is that new), but it’s a nice product and it’s very clear from the user interface and his dedication to get it right (he is lightening fast on replying to user issues, that’s experience first hand BTW) is crystal clear.

His product is a Build tool for developers.  Now – yes there are lots of established build tools out there.  I use one (so should you) already and I’ve been a happy and loyal user of it.  But Build Automator (that’s the name of the product) is actually very fresh and clean. 

It’s not jam packed with every bell and whistle that so many build tools overwhelm us with, though he has said he has some additional, and very useful, things to add in the near future, the point is he’s released! 

This artist has *shipped*! 

In an online forum I am a member of he was asked (when he announced Beta) whether or not he’d be giving away free copies to Beta testers.  He replied beautifully by stating that the product was release ready *now* and neatly side-stepped this inevitable and annoying line of questioning.  I too grow weary of folks looking for a freebie.  He’s built this to feed his family and for the pleasure of running a business (I assume).  He has the domain knowledge, code skills and design skills so why the heck not be paid for it?!!

Now – about loving it.  I said he loves it – right?  Well it’s very clear he does, beyond his fast replies to what were a few minor issues (related to my hardware).  He’s gone with the, what I feel is, smooth Office 2003 look featuring the blue gradient toolbars and menus.  I’m not saying this is the *only* way of producing a pleasing interface, it isn’t the only way.  But it’s one way and it works well with this application.

His primary application icon is professionally designed and *unique* to his program.  First impressions count and this impression was flawless. 

The installer was smooth.  The installer didn’t change associations to various files on my system without my permission or any shenanigans like that, it didn’t place an icon on my task tray, it installed the program cleanly.

The icons in the toolbar are *clean*.  They blend well, they are not the same colour of course which would not be right, and they work well together.  They are chosen with care and consideration.  They are logical for the task at hand and I’m told he’s actually replacing some of those in the next build or so – so here’s a mISV who really does take pride!

Build Automator features nice clean dialogs, with careful and considered use of white space where needed, while not totally abandoning the standard Windows grey theming on XP (runs perfectly and properly on Vista too of course).   

Program functionality is neat and tidy and seems to be well thought out and coded.  The program does what it’s supposed to do – build projects for developers.  While IceTips is yet to add all the build options for the different compilers it currently supports most common ones including Delphi, Clarion 7, Clarion#, Visual C++, Visual C#, Visual Basic.  It supports a growing number of installers (more being added soon I’m told) and other tools one would expect.  The ability to FTP a build up to your server (coming soon I’m assured) isn’t there yet, something I personally need but it’s a flying start for a very usable product.

I’m not in the habit of recommending products, but if you’re not using a build tool now, or are looking for a new one I think Build Automator is worth some time checking out.  The price is right and IceTips seem keen to be of help if you have any questions.  In the sense of checking out a nice fresh, *clean* user interface it’s essential viewing by all ISV’s as I firmly believe it’s an indication of where and what we should be trying to achieve, especially if you are in the pre-release stage or just starting your project.

IceTips and Build Automator can be found at:

http://www.buildautomator.com

He has a blog, too.  I’ve added that link to my Blog Roll but you can access it direct here:

www.buildautomator.com/blog

 I’m not a great fan of software patents.  Having said that I’m not entirely opposed to them either, it’s just that some patents seem to be totally off the planet in terms of how they want, or the amount of dollars they want, from you in order to comply.

Take the old UniSys GIF patent.  The GIF file was embraced early on as an image format for websites. Before the so called dot com crash most sites used GIF.  UniSys got greedy, very greedy.  UniSys originally promised Compuserve that there would be no encumbrance on using GIF.  A few years later UniSys changes their mind.  After a huge outcry (and a bit of a battle with Compuserve) UniSys decided that they would only charge commercial entities for GIF.  The online world calmed down and GIF use continued, even though there were alternatives like JPEG and PNG which in many ways were superior. 

However UniSys again changed their mind in 1999.  Everybody must pay or face litigation for patent infringement.  That meant it didn’t matter if you created the GIF yourself, paid someone to do it, used a “licensed tool” to create it and/or just showed the GIF in a webpage.  Minimum license fee for non commercial use was $5000 and they did not consider websites falling under that category.

The GIF patent held by UniSys expired on June 20, 2003.  But, by and large GIF is pretty much dead now with sites embracing JPEG and more recently the superior PNG (which is free from patent encumbrance), increasingly since Microsoft fixed PNG bugs in Internet Explorer.

Fast forward to 2008.  The technically inferior (just like GIF was in its day) MP3 format is in widespread usage.  It’s probably fair to say it’s bigger than GIF (a similar statement from John Lennon regarding the Beatles once caused folks to burn their Beatles records.  I’d be happy enough if you did the same with your MP3 files.).  This sonically degenerate audio file format is used by tens of millions to listen to music – proof positive that the average person is incapable of hearing or at least recognizing and processing the full audio spectrum available to the human ear.  That’s not a criticism of the average person, it’s equally true they do not have the training or equipment or even the time to pay attention to something better. 

However the point is we are stuck with MP3.  There are several stake holders to the MP3 patent arena.  The most notable being Fraunhofer, AT&T-Bell Labs, Thomson-Brandt, CCETT and Alcatel-Lucent with most well known being the arrangement via Thompson which collects on behalf of several stake holders.  More recently Alcatel-Lucent went after Microsoft but their original win was over turned.  Alcatel-Lucent tried to argue that it has patented technology that was not part of patent covered by Microsoft’s payment to Fraunhofer/Thompson.  This whole debacle made the UniSys problems seem incredibly simple.

But here’s the point of this blog post.  Thompson used to limit the amount of money payable to them under a certain value (from memory – could be failing me here – it was around $10,000).  Now $10,000 is the *minimum* payable for royalties based on sales.  You pay separately to read, write, distribute, stream and so on and so forth.  This is totally ridiculous.

You work on a file format, make it a standard and then screw everybody who adopts it (most of the world).  But here’s the kicker.  Only part of the world is screwed.  You see if you’re in the so called “Western World” which for the purposes of definition (though not geographically correct) includes the USA, Western Europe, UK, Ireland, Canada, New Zealand and Australia then you pay and you pay big.  However.  If you’re from the “rest of the world” you pay nix, nada, nothing.  That’s because pursuing patent infringements in those countries is pretty much like playing darts in the dark.  Hence the plethora of mutli-media software (mostly DRM busting to boot) coming out of those regions – with complete and utter impunity. If you knew how many of these DRM busting programs I reject on a newsgroup I moderate you’d be amazed. 

Effectively what this crazy cost of compliance does is limit the market to players who have the bucks (who are most likely eventually to break reliance on the patent through development of their own standard anyway, like MS or Apple etc) or to those who can flaunt it with impunity.  Stifling the very people most likely to earn the patent holders a dollar.

So why not drop MP3 and code for one of the non patent enforced alternatives like OGG etc (and there are many and some better than OGG).  Simply because of market inertia.  The consumer is consuming MP3’s.  Their players play MP3 (very few support OGG or other formats) and getting the consumer to switch is and always will be a tough thing.  Especially when the problems of the format do no affect them directly, or as far as they are concerned, indirectly.  

I don’t believe software patents should be outlawed (as some suggest).  But I do believe that the way in which some patents are implemented smacks off price gouging and in any other situation would be declared illegal.  It’s about time something was done to end the price gouging, not the registration or reasonable collecting of patents.

I’m working, as I mentioned in a recent post here, on a new mISV that will work within the multi-media region.  MP3 is a big sticking point.  I’m seriously considering not supporting it directly from the software.  This is a *huge* decision to make.  While my mind is not yet made up, I have to say I’m 75% there in terms of making a decision.  I originally intended to happily pay the patent royalty to Thompson due to consumer reliance on MP3.  However the recent changes to licensing and royalties make this pretty damn hard, read to bloody expensive, for a startup.  Frankly that sucks, but one is left with only two options.  Pay and support, or don’t pay and don’t support the format.  There is a third, read the format via the WMP API from Microsoft, however Thompson’s advice is that ISV’s are not covered using that method.

If only Apple and Microsoft would have the balls to embrace an open, patent free standard like OGG (or one of the many others) and literally wipe out MP3 almost overnight.

More information can be found on the UniSys GIF patent at:

http://www.silverglass.org/rants/unisys-gif.html 

Thompson Patent at:

http://mp3licensing.com/royalty/software.html

After being out of software development in any real commercial sense for almost six years now, a foray into audio (my other love) and a lengthy stretch of personal, debilitating illness I’m at last ready to strike out with a new business as a mISV.  The software I’ve chosen (which I will disclose here in this blog in the coming weeks) is something I have domain knowledge in.  It leverages my audio skills as a musician and trained audio engineer as well as over thirty years programming.  It seems to me to fit well.  It’s not designed to attract offers from VC’s or become the next Google or Facebook.  In fact the idea of becoming such a thing does not appeal to me at all.  Rather something that feeds and provides the kids with an education and offers a comfortable life-style is the ultimate goal of the entire exercise.  It’s not strictly B2C and it’s not strictly B2B but rather a blend of the two.  There are existing similar app’s but they are amateur and miss targeted.  There is nothing at the pro level for this below the thousands of dollars mark.  It’s aimed at folks who are novices and does not pretend to be anything a pro audio person would use, though it will incorporate pro features and the audio engine is very powerful.   It is not a “media player” like iTunes or WMP or WinAmp.  It will cost $’s to purchase and it will include a type of “consumable”. 

One of the big issues I faced doing this the last time around (it seems so long ago now) was that I was solo.  That meant I had limited amounts of time and motivation to do all the things one has to do on their own.  This time my wife is partnering with me. By profession she is a teacher, which fits well with the primary product, and she’s frankly had enough of teaching, the kids are eleven and thirteen now so she has the time to be involved.  She’s never been keen on computers but recently has completed several units in computing and this is also ongoing.  I think this is an advantage, that she can now use a computer but is still a novice.  It helps with R&D and it helps with design and testing.  It’s harder for my assumptions to slip through the alpha cycle.  Naturally this is a short term advantage as she will progress to a higher level of user in the future, as most people ultimately do.

We face a few startup problems, who doesn’t?   My illness and the fact that she has been doing home duties for many years now means cash is a commodity that is scarce.  We both need new machines, a compiler update, widgets for the compiler, domain names and hosting (we have the latter already) and all those things that come with such a venture (we are fortunate in having a relatively secure though abysmally small steady income that literally allows us to scrape by at the present time so eating and paying the mortgage kind of stuff are covered).  There’s no way I’d borrow for this as I have an allergy to debt of this nature so I need to raise capital.  Enter my car.  Even though we live in the outer suburbs I’ve sold it to finance this.  My wife has her car of course, but I’m not permitted to drive that. :-)   So it’s trains for me!

At the time of writing I have sold the car, bought a new dual core Pentium (new monitor to follow) with four Gigs of RAM and a terabyte total of HD space.  I’ve handed my old dev’ machine to my wife as initially a single core with a Gig of RAM will be just fine for her.   I’ve updated to Delphi 2007 and started buying widgets where I can to save on dev’ time.  I think this is important.  Just because you can code it doesn’t mean you should waste extra time doing it.  So I’ve begun buying widget sets (components) that I require in order to get look and feel right without having to code in minutiae.  Very happy with the first mock-ups for this reason.

But cash wise this is pretty much exhausted now so we need to raise more.  I ran an experiment on eBay over a year ago with quick and easy to develop software and discovered to my amazement it sold extremely well (enough to live off, albeit not live well).  For various reasons at the time I did not pursue it further.  We will be (we have!) developing a series of applications (twenty to start with, all with the same code base but for different purposes) with which to leverage this and gain the extra income.  The core product took eight hours to code.  Each application then takes another eight or less to snap in (reports, UI differences etc).  To my mind these are attractive looking programs, care was taken with the UI and code leveraging experience and study that I have done.  I’ll provide further details here in the coming weeks with some links.  I’ve not decided as to whether or not I will publish actual sales data or not yet. The mISV isn’t technically the eBay stuff.  That’s purely for income generation in the shorter term.  However beyond that it is my intention to be relatively transparent and frank about the process.  It’s also my hope that this blog will assist me in staying focussed.

More Soon….