LESSONS FOR MICRO FOCUS FROM INDIE MAC DEVELOPMENT
JOHNNIE ODOM SCHOOL DISTRICT OF ESCAMBIA COUNTY
ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE HAS A LOT OF HIDDEN COSTS
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Localization
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Documentation
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Accessibility
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Marketing
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QA
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Support
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Security
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Legacy
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Industrial Certification and Auditing
INDIE SOFTWARE: A WORKING DEFINITION
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Small teams
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Often one person
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Niche markets with loyal customers
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Both parts of this important
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Emphasis on exploiting the unique culture and personality of a specific platform
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While we look at the Mac, do some of these points look familiar?
OUR EXAMPLES
Panic
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Fetchsoftworks
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The Omni Group
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Delicious Monster
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Bare Bones Software
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We could also discuss Red Sweater Software, Vesper,
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Rogue Amoeba, Smile, and Marco Arment
COMMON CHARACTERISTICS OF EXAMPLES
Longevity and profitability of business
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Longevity of codebase
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Best in class applications
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Quick adoption of new platform functionality without
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fundamental rewrites Unafraid to sell or retire applications
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Emphasis on design and interface
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“Serious” applications
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NOVELL’S MAC ATTITUDE
Market is too small for significant focus
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Shared Java codebase with Linux clients is a good solution (GW, iPrint,
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Zen) Users would want too many features in a v1 client
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Platform has no future
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User Awareness in application is not a priority
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(By implication) Platform-specific features too costly to implement or
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not important You can also extend some of these attitudes towards Linux and mobile
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WHAT IS THE APPEAL OF THE MACINTOSH?
Unity of Hardware and Software
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Driver stability
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Ability to move hardware forward (Floppies, GPT)
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Expectation / Assumption of Functionality (iSight, Bluetooth, High-Resolution Displays)
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Perfectionism
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Deciding what “The Right Thing” is and implementing it.
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Perfection on core features may mean delays on other features or simplification of entire
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feature set. “Design is not how it looks, it is how it works.”
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Liberal Arts
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Software is for humans to fulfill human goals
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Make it easy for the human user, not the machine or the developer.
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DEVELOPER APPEAL
User base is willing to pay for high quality software
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True on OS X, not iOS
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Toolset
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“Easy things are easy, hard things are possible”
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Developers like being Mac users
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FEATURES (SOMEWHAT) UNIQUE TO THE PLATFORM
Lots of hardware
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Applescript / OSAScript / Automator
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Strong visual interface with animation
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File metadata
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Application and preference encapsulation
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Sandboxing and code-signing
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AND NOW, A WALK THROUGH SOME INDIE DEVS
FETCHSOFTWORKS
One major product: Fetch FTP Client
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Compare to FileZilla, SCP
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Surely such a niche platform only has one good commercial file transfer client
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Came out of Dartmouth (Academia)
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First release 1989
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Remember when universities made software?
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Free for educational use
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Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
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The Vax Challenge
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Who is Fetchsoftworks?
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Jim Matthews
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PANIC (THE SOFTWARE) PART 1
The Audion Story
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So, these guys make toys, right?
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Transmit
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The other great, commercial Mac file transfer program
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Unison
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The best NNTP / Usenet client ever made
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Recently retired and free
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Take a look at the Novell forums
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Can you imagine putting that much care in a Usenet client in 2014?
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PANIC (THE SOFTWARE) PART 2
Coda
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All-In-One Web Development
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But not like Dreamweaver
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Piecemeal, like web designers actually work
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Lots of functionality only in GUI
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Bespoke GUI elements
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And much, much more
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PANIC (THE COMPANY)
Caleb Sasser and Steven Frank
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Offices in Portland, Oregon
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Profitable, No Debt, Growing
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Support via Twitter amongst others
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Blog with year-end reports
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iOS vs. Mac stats
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THE OMNI GROUP (THE COMPANY)
Began as NeXT Consultants, not Mac Developers
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Even More Serious Software (with prices to match)
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Track suits yes, Fish tank walls no
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Consulting to software (sound familiar)
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OSX, iPhone, iPad products all separate components of distinct
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lines Regular and Pro versions
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Mac Development Mailing Lists
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THE OMNI GROUP (THE SOFTWARE)
Make some products directly mapping to Microsoft products
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Omnigraffle - Visio
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OmniPlan - Project
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Omniweb (retired) - IE
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Omnifocus
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Omnioutliner
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Presence
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DELICIOUS MONSTER
Wil Shipley
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Prodigal Son of Omni
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• Writes in coffee shops
Delicious Library
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A Bog-Standard App
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With one great feature
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“Pimp My Code”
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The Delicious Generation
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BARE BONES SOFTWARE
BBEdit
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Released in 1992 for System 6.
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Entire books have been written on it.
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Free version is TextWrangler.
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Yojimbo
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The craziest notes application you will ever use.
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SO, WHAT DID WE LEARN IN THE END?
Why did the chicken cross the road?
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To show the armadillo what could be done.
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It is possible to build serious, beloved Mac
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software with small teams and profitability. Any Questions?
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