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