Formed in 2000 SplashData has a vision of building a complete digital wallet. The founders, John Chaffee and Ray Marshall, had worked together at Extensis Corporation which specialized in software to manage digital assets with a focus on images. When Extensis was bought out by ImageX, John and Ray used the opportunity to start working on their vision.

SplashPhoto, a photo management application with a slideshow feature, was the first step, which may seem odd but John explained that “this fits the metaphor as it replaces the analog photos that we carry in our wallets.” This was followed by SplashMoney, which allows users to track credit card, checking or any other expense. Then came SplashID for secure storage of bank account and credit card details but is often used for storing web site user ID’s and passwords, which John admits does not exactly fit in the wallet metaphor but is “close enough” and finally SplashShopper for storing and managing purchase wish lists.

These first four applications were developed and shipped during SplashData’s first year. The next couple of years were then spent consolidating the business, updating and improving the applications as well as getting to grips with the software marketing.

In 2003 SplashData made a sea change in strategy. “During 2003 we saw the PDA market reach a plateau, while sales continued the market was not growing and while we had established a business as a leading Palm application supplier we realized that for growth we would need to embrace the wider convergent device market,” says John. “Symbian OS was a very attractive option for this strategy. While PDA shipments may have stabilized in the region of 10 million devices a year, the projections for Symbian OS smartphone of volumes of 100 million units per year in the not too distant future, was something we could not ignore!”

SplashData’s first step was to UIQ mainly because “we saw the Sony Ericsson P800, were impressed with the device and saw it as a great opportunity.” Series 60 followed; driven by the projections of device number and the fact that eighty percent of the UIQ code would run on Series 60. In parallel SplashData also embraced Microsoft Pocket PC. Initially it did not move to Microsoft Smartphone due to uncertainty about support but when Motorola introduced the MPX Microsoft Smartphone support was also added.

To build the Symbian OS version of its applications SplashData chose to take on a new software engineer. “We felt that using one of our existing engineering staff might create an inappropriate burden,” say John. “This approach also meant that our Symbian OS engineer could immerse themselves in the Symbian OS world as a fresh start, reviewing the documentation, sample code and browsing the forums.” This approach has worked well particularly as we have been very impressed with the Symbian OS and what we can accomplish with it,” according to John. “Even from my perspective, and I’m not an engineer, it does appear to be a very impressive OS from a handheld standpoint.”

However despite the regard they hold Symbian OS in it has proved to have its frustrations for SplashData, mainly with synchronization.

“One of the features of our software that differentiated us in the Palm market is the ability to synchronize data between the mobile device and a PC,” says John. “But implementing this functionality for our Symbian OS software has not been as straightforward.”

John contrasts the Symbian OS features with Palm. “Palm devices ship with hotsync and a desktop cradle which makes physically connecting the device to a PC simple,” says John. “There is also a set of APIs for developing conduits for exchanging data with a PC. With Symbian OS only the P900 comes with a cradle but more significantly the protocols for synchronization are not as robust. We ended up having to create our own synchronization technology, using M-Router to create the connection, but everything else we had to add ourselves.”

Another challenge faced by SplashData is the fact that very few Series 60 devices include USB connectivity as an option, although several devices such as the Siemens SX1 and the forthcoming Nokia 6630 are adding it, making current devices very challenging to synchronize with a desktop PC using Infrared or Bluetooth. As a result very few Nokia Series 60 customers are synchronizing with a desktop computer, which poses challenges for developers like SplashData whose software has synchronization as a major feature or expects users to download and install software via a PC connection.

SplashData undertake their Palm and Symbian OS development using the CodeWarrior IDE while Microsoft tools are used for the Pocket PC and Smartphone development. “If you talk to developers with a Windows background they are not comfortable with using CodeWarrior,” says John. “But Mac developers love it, as they have been using CodeWarrior for many years. Our Symbian developer has a Mac background so the transition was easy.”

SplashData has also found it possible to re-use much of the core applications code. “As part of SplashPhoto we had developed a JPG decoder as an ARMLet and it ran just fine on Symbian OS,” says John. “So while all the UI was built from scratch the rendering engine was reused.” SplashData achieves its best reuse in the desktop application where support for each platform is provided via DLL plug-ins for each of the different mobile platforms.

While adding Symbian OS to its supported portfolio was a technical challenge; marketing for the new platforms is an even bigger challenge. “Marketing an application in the Palm world is really easy and efficient,” says John. “There are a couple sites, PalmGear and Handango, which get most of the purchaser traffic and they offer various marketing opportunities like direct email or web advertising. PalmOne is also exclusively focused on selling handhelds and make it easy to target their customers.” By contrast John believes the Pocket PC market is the hardest to work in because “for device manufacturers like HP and Dell handhelds are not their core business, so they don’t offer programs which allow us to access their customers.”

For John Symbian OS fall between these two. “I think Sony Ericsson is well focused on supporting developers to market and we are members of Sony Ericsson’s developer program. Sony Ericsson also works well for us as I think the target user of a P900 is a leading edge user and very similar to people who purchase our software for Palm or Pocket PC.

We are also looking at Forum Nokia Pro and plugging into the services they have to offer but we are finding Series 60 to be a more challenging platform from a marketing perspective.”

While the UIQ customer is similar to their traditional PDA buyer John believes the typical Series 60 customer is quite different. “One of the strengths of our product has been the PC integration,” says John. “But with Series 60 the user may never sync their device up with a PC, and we are starting to rethink our products to see how we can best fulfill the requirements of this quite different market segment.” While John is not specific about SplashData’s plans it is certainly looking towards features such as over the air backup and archiving.

To assist with the marketing of its products SplashData has also started using the Symbian Signed program and has already signed both its UIQ application with plans to do the same for the Series 60 versions. “Operators and device manufactures are going to require applications are Symbian Signed before they will put them in their channel,” says John. “So to keep our marketing options open its something we have to use.” Currently software is submitted to Cap Gemini for signing. “I think the process is great, our applications came back after a couple of days and the whole process can be done in a week,” says John. “It’s so automated and easy to do – you can do it all on the web, although I would like an online credit card payment option.”

While John is enthusiastic about Symbian OS he feels a sense of frustration as a US based developer. “At present devices like the Sony Ericsson P900 are not carried by a majority of US carriers and I think the fact that Sony Ericsson and Nokia are not US based just makes it a little harder for us here in the US to work with Symbian OS,” says John. “I’m excited about the platform but I would like to see better distribution here in the US.”

SplashData is probably typical of developers who are transitioning from PDA to smartphone and having to address the challenges of refocusing application which have had a strong PC focus and targeted a technically savvy user. SplashData are in the early stages of transition with much work to do but with the strength of solid application platform to start the process.

Web: www.splashdata.com