Andrew Seybold: If you build it, will they find It?

There are many developers who have developed some games, entertainment and, of course, business applications. There is no dearth of programs available for most types of wireless devices and all you have to do is read the press releases to know that the iPhone and Android communities are quickly building their own developer following. The advantage to the iPhone is that they will only have to build an application once. The downside is that the iPhone represents only a small fraction of the wireless devices in use worldwide.

With Android, we are being promised a write once, run on any device, fully open platform that could make developers' lives easier, but it is not clear to me if there will be enough momentum behind Android to provide a significant income source for the developer community.

Once you have done all the work and the program is ready to be shipped, exactly how do you get it noticed? If you are lucky, you get it placed on a network's home deck or at least in its catalog. If not, you have to be creative to get attention, or find a company that is willing to add your program to its catalog.

This is not news to developers that write and develop programs. And there are many people trying to find a solution to this problem.

Let's take a look at this from the other side-consumers and business customers who are interested in finding applications that will help them in their daily work life. I think it is important to understand their (and my) frustrations. You may have the best application for me. However, if I cannot find it, or if I find it but cannot try it out, I won't buy it.

Here is an example. For a very long time, I have been looking for an easy-to-use expense program for my BlackBerry that I can use to enter items quickly and easily, and that will interface with, at the very least, an Excel spreadsheet and, better yet, a desktop expense package. There are plenty of packages available. In fact, a Google search on "BlackBerry Expense Software" turns up 1,720,000 hits. Of course, not all of them are for software, some are reviews and comments, but the first four or five pages of the search are mostly software packages that may be what I am looking for.

The next step is to go to the websites of a few of them, read the descriptions (which usually don't tell me much about the application and how it works) and, in many cases, I can download a sample on my BlackBerry and try it out. NOT! Sorry, did not mean to yell, but I don't have time to download three, four or more potential programs and experiment with them on the BlackBerry only to find them lacking (for me) in one aspect or another.

What I want is to be able to try the software on a mock-up of my BlackBerry on my desktop or notebook computer. Yes, I know that in many countries people don't have computers, so the idea of using a desktop for a test bed won't always work, but in North America it is safe to say that most of us do have at least one computer.

Before I leave on a trip, I would like to download three or four sample expense reports onto my notebook. Once I got settled in my airplane seat, I would open my notebook, wait forever for it to boot up, and then load the first program and test it out on the on-screen BlackBerry. I would type in some expenses, see how they are sorted, see if the program is flexible enough for what I want (random entry of random expenses), and then I would export what I created to my spreadsheet. Then I would move on to the next program and repeat the process. When I was finished, I would choose the program I want and order it. When my flight landed, my wirelessly-enabled notebook would send the order and during my cab ride to the hotel the program would show up on my BlackBerry.

I know this sounds like a lot of work, but there are some programs out there that let me do what I have described--but not nearly enough. When you develop a program, you usually use a simulator on your computer screen, so why can't I have access to a simulator when I want to try out a program? There are dozens of programs I would probably pay for out there, but finding them is tough and trying each directly on my device to determine which one I want to pay for is way too much work--at least for me. And I suspect a lot of other people. Make it simple, make it easy to try and make it easy to buy.

Andrew Seybold is an authority on technology and trends shaping the world of wireless mobility. A respected analyst, consultant, commentator, author and active participant in industry trade organizations, his views have influenced strategies and shaped initiatives for telecom, mobile computing and wireless industry leaders worldwide. www.andrewseybold.com