You might have noticed my blogging frequency has been down so far this year, mostly it’s because “life gets in the way”” as Ian Landsman once said.
Between working on MixAction and spending time with the kids for their Summer holidays one tends to find the eight days a week developers try and utilize is reduced to a bare minimum.
I’m hoping to break the blog article drought, difficult when the temperature today was 110 deg F.
Recently on the Business of Software forums a person posted asking a series of rhetorical questions in response to a conclusion he believes in, or perhaps “believe” is to strong a word and rather “put forward”. That conclusion is probably best summed up by his subject heading for the thread: Only Make Exceptional Products
OK. Now, it has to be said that developer egos being what they are, massive 
, everybody thinks they’ve written an “exceptional product”. I guess one could argue that if you did not believe this in some respect or other then you have no business selling it. Of course “exceptional” is relative. There is a lot of “exceptional” crap out there in the software arena. Suggest, for example, to most developers, how they can improve their product, especially if you’re a developer, as opposed to a customer, and you are quite likely to receive the full impact of the bile laying in the depths of their stomach.
I don’t think “make an exceptional product” is a yardstick for development or marketing. That’s not the same thing as not aiming to create the best possible solution to a problem and pushing yourself and your product to the limits. It’s just that I believe it is far to glib and misconstrued to be a marketing strategy for anybody except the most extraordinary – in other words a Steve Jobs personality.
I found the discussion however interesting as the subject for this post was something I had already begun earlier this week as I contemplated the results of a recent exercise I did with my kids. I was going to share it here this week anyway, so it was an apt tie in.
MixAction has three main existing competitors of varying degrees of competency. One is at Version 2.0, yet it’s barely a beta. One is for the Mac and is a glorified media player. I’m not counting the nit wit who tried to clone the MixAction UI last year so that leaves us with one other who is actually at Version 10. I find this number curious in that it appears the product was first released at Version 1.0 circa 2006, but there you go. A quick version cycle, each to his or her own.
The competitor at Version 10 has introduced a particular interface widget that is relatively new to Microsoft products. So folks will be able to guess what this is. For now I’m not going to name it.
This widget has certain requirements. Firstly Microsoft require you agree to a license, using a “virtual signature” and that you download and make certain you implement certain required features if you’re going to use the gadget or combinations of it in your UI. Other features are optional.
With my kids we sat down, and with this widget only and no other part of the application being taken into account, we identified 60 “violations” of the license agreement one should sign with Microsoft to incorporate the widget. The first violation was that credit was not given to Microsoft in the docs, about box or anywhere for the widget or that it was a design used under license. This probably indicates the developer didn’t sign and/or does not even know of the requirement to sign.
Given this the remaining 59 violations are hardly surprising.
My point here is that this is 60, with one widget only, vectors upon which a competitor, in this case myself, can launch against this developer. Now, having said that, no I’m not going to report him or otherwise interfere with him. But by making sure my own product does not violate any such conditions or licensing (and yes, this widget has found it’s way into MixAction, but unlike the competitor I have met Microsoft’s requirements) my own product becomes better.
Who cares?
Nobody except me, possibly the competitor when it dawns on him – and Microsoft perhaps. The consumer won’t, these are Windows consumers and generally anything goes tends apply with Windows app’s in general (whether or not this is the correct approach not withstanding).
However – an attack is an attack. By taking the time to isolate weaknesses like this one produces, or should, an application without these flaws. One step towards, though certainly not attaining, “exceptional products.”
Of course this exercise was on one widget. As you can imagine you can have a field day – or year – with the rest of the application and implementation. Licensing the audio engine he’s using is another issue. Maybe he has, but looking at his lack of willingness to spend on resources the issue does occur to me. In a nutshell I suspect he’s vulnerable on many fronts.
Most anybody can be a “weekend coder” and whack together something for their preferred “hobby”. But with attention to detail, it’s not to hard to observe and solve the problems within your own application that a competing application manifests simply because the developer either didn’t know any better or didn’t care – and you look more professional because of it.
It could be argued that the “create an exceptional product” and what I briefly discussed in the example are one and the same – but I think this approach is a little more realistic than some arty-farty goal that remains intangible and unrealistic.
Scott Kane
Quote of the day:
Cockroaches and socialites are the only things that can stay up all night and eat anything. – Herb Caen
