How to make sound software and
how to sell windows mobile application?
Introduction:
Our this article is divided into two different portions, first portion is about
how to make a sound software and second portion is about making and selling an
application on windows mobile.
How to make sound software:
The first thing we going to discuss is about how to make perfect software. In
order to do that we need to understand some terms and 10 basic concepts before
you are going to make software for any customer.
The following 10 points are listed as below:
o Spend time with customers
o Ask “dumb” questions
o Let go of your past
o Surround yourself with experts
o Gather data
o Focus
o Concentrate on what, not how
o Communicate, communicate, communicate
o Sell your product internally
o Do whatever it takes
Spend time with customer:
The single most important thing software managers can do is to understand the
market, The best way to understand the market is to spend time with customers.
Establish a regular schedule with a customer and get your collogues to visit
them and bring back the information.
Ask “dumb” questions:
“Dumb” questions are really more about when they get asked than about what you
are asking. New Software Managers have the luxury of asking naive questions. Ask
as many questions as possible as soon as possible Who to ask? Customers,
colleagues, stakeholders, superiors, partners and competitors. Make note of
interesting answers for future reference.
Let go of your past:
What were you in your “past” life? Whatever it was, you’re software managers
now. There is a natural instinct for Software Managers to gravitate towards the
function of the business from which they came – resist it
Audit the time you are spending on each area of the product. Have an open
conversation with colleagues in your former role
► Discuss experiences and establish boundaries
► Think hard before overruling decisions
► Review regularly to discuss progress
Surround yourself with experts:
Software Managers cannot and should not do it all alone, your success depends on
others, do not try to be an expert in everything ,Leverage the expertise of
others in certain areas, Look for “formal” and “informal” advisors, Experts do
not just have to be within your organization. Identify internal experts in
targeted areas, Enlist experts as Trusted Advisors, Utilize advisors for
decision-making, planning, support and overcoming obstacles.
Gather data:
“In a truly consumer-driven company, decisions are based on data… so the person
with the best data wins.” – Scott Cook; Founder, Intuit. There are lots of
different types of data.
– Internal data
– External data
– Market data
– Product data
Gather existing market research and industry data – primary and secondary,
Identify information gaps and develop plans to fill them, Gather existing
product performance data, Identify missing and desired information and leverage
colleagues to obtain.
Focus:
It will be overwhelming; you will not know where to start, It is better to do
one thing well than to do a lot of things poorly, Make a list of all of the
“internal” and “external” priorities, Determine timelines, relative levels of
effort, and resources required. Pick a few quick wins and focus initial effort,
during that time, develop longer-term focus, Get agreement on focus,
communicate, and reiterate it.
Concentrate on what, not how:
It will be tempting to control “how” things get done with your product. Resist
the temptation, Software Managers should define “what” needs to happen…and
others should define “how” those things happen, Clarify roles and
responsibilities with team members Get regular feedback on whether you and
others are keeping with the agreed-upon responsibilities, Clarify roles and
responsibilities with team members
► Engineering
► Design
► Marketing
Get regular feedback on whether you and others are keeping with the agreed-upon
responsibilities
Communicate, communicate, and communicate:
Do not underestimate the importance of communication in all forms.
– Informal
– Formal
– Written
– Verbal
– Unspoken
– Method
– Timeline
– Frequency
– tone
Audit current communications (if any), Get feedback from stakeholders on
preferred communications channels and frequency Develop communications plan;
type and frequency
– Email
– newsletter
– Intranet site
– presentations
Set reminders about communications and stick to schedule!
Sell your product internally:
In order to understand this concept let’s say you have to keep some points into
your mind. Think like that your products is the only unique and try to use the
resources which are popular like face book and other websites which offers free
services of promoting your stuffs to the world. Try to share your product to
your friends and get the feed backs and never ever ignore the negative feed
backs because they help you in future for making software again for them in
proper manners.
Do whatever it takes:
“Be willing to do whatever it takes....I know of many cases where the software
managers needed to help out with deliverables for customer support, sales
training, and technical writing, QA, engineering, and marketing. You may need to
just do it.”
In order to be successful you need to know more about the programming, market
and other stuffs and technologies. This would help you boost up on your
software. Don’t start your project too early but not too late too, take time and
understand the environment for the type of software the customers wants.
Being team leader always help your members and motivate them, train them as they
might be useful in future.
How to sell windows mobile software
In this topic I would be discussing about two different stuffs.
o Development and tools of windows mobile application.
o How to sell it
Development and tools of windows mobile application:
In order to make an application you need an IDE for windows mobile Microsoft
provides an utmost powerful tool Microsoft Visual studio 2010 (service pack 1)
SDK tool.
What exactly you need.
1. Silver Light
2. XNA (for games)
Silver light:
Silver light is a product that you need for making normal or business type of
application. These let you communicate with the internet and almost all the
applications that we make on windows mobile are depending on it.
XNA (for games):
XNA is basically for games developments and helps you making games not only on
windows mobile but also on X-Box, personal computer and also on Windows mobiles
too. These games are further linked with Silver light in order to do multiplayer
games so that people can see each other’s results and compete with others.
How to sell your windows mobile software:
Being in Pakistan we have one problem that we can’t sell our software in
Microsoft site with in this country. So the next question arises that to whom
should we sell. Well Australia is supporting Asian countries to sell the mobile
software and getting contact it with Microsoft. Microsoft itself charges 50% of
the application being sold per copy. And the supporting country itself demands
30% of it so you are left with 20% now. This isn’t much for you. So in order to
get some profit we try to use advertisement system in our application to gain
some more advantage instead going hopeless in developing. That is how mostly
developers do these days in their application productivity.