We had the pleasure of interviewing Mr. Alex Kac, the CEO of Web Information Solutions, Inc., which has focused on the Mobile PDA and Smartphone market since August of 2001 and has risen to become one of top ten developers by sales for mobile devices shortly thereafter.

1. Tell us a little about yourself

So to tell you a bit about myself I’ll have to tell you about the company first. I’m the founder of WebIS or Web Information Solutions, Inc. WebIS started as a consulting company in 1997 and became a full fledged mobile development house in 2001. We now have about 7 people who work for us mostly full time, but we have a couple part-timers and the company has grown to encompass Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, and iPhone platforms.

I have grown from being the person who does everything (Marketing, Development, Accounting, Support) back in 2001 to the one who does some of the development and most of the marketing, and all of the management I’m here in Cedar Park, Texas right down the road from Austin. This is what I do for a living! All mobile all the time.

Well, not all the time. Personally I spend my time with my family and practicing the art of Tae-Kwon-Do. Last few weeks I’ve grown a bit chubbier due to spraining my ankle during a sparring match against a Texas State Champion and doing something stupid. Completely my fault, but now I’m stuck on the couch and that doesn’t do well for your waistline.

2. What BlackBerry do you use now and what PDAs have you used in the past?

I’ve got both a Storm and a Bold, but frankly I prefer the Bold. I love the GUI of the Storm but I simply can’t get into the whole click screen thing. Plus I’m on AT&T (too many GSM phones to test) so the click screen of the Storm didn’t push me to move to Verizon. Maybe if there was an AT&T Storm then I’d probably go for that. I would really like to give the Storm another chance. Maybe the Storm 2?

3. Why is the BlackBerry a good platform to develop on?

I can boil it down to three reasons:
1) The users.
2) The API
3) RIM

So for #1 the fact is the users of the platform are great. They are very good to work with and provide outstanding feedback.

While anyone can read my treatise on development for WM, iPhone, and BlackBerry on my Blog and get all the pros and cons of all the areas of development, the bottom line is that the Java development environment makes developing many things easier and more efficient. And finally, while I don’t always agree with RIM on specific decisions they make I greatly appreciate the fact that I have a person I can email and talk to about things now and upcoming. I’ve been able to get answers to issues on specific OS versions within a few days and that’s nearly unheard of.

4. Other than your own, name your three favorite applications for the BlackBerry.

Facebook of course. WorldMate Live and IM+.

5. What’s your favorite trick or feature that you use on your BlackBerry?

My favorite really comes down to our own app – Pocket Informant. What I love is being able to be in mail and to create a new task or event for that email directly within the app. Its a level of integration we can’t do on the iPhone or Windows Mobile and I love it.

6. What’s the most important feature that the BlackBerry lacks?

I think in terms of development usually when asked this kind of question because I believe that third party developers can make up any lacking feature. To me its the consistency of the interface that bugs me the most. Sometimes its graphical and sometimes its very text-based. I get the reason for it, but it bothers me.

7. Where do you see the focus of third party programs for the BlackBerry going over the next few months?

I think mostly we’re going to see new ideas that come from the iPhone side where people are upset with Apple’s policies bringing those same apps to the BlackBerry. Things like Google Voice apps and Sling are great examples.

Web Information Solutions Website: http://www.pocketinformant.com/

This is the fourteenth interview in our series of interviews with various CEOs of BlackBerry software companies. Mr. Idan Meir is the CEO of Wise Mobile Solutions, which specializes in mobile application development. They are best known for Message Peek for BlackBerry, an application which allows users to fully preview incoming Email and SMS messages on your BlackBerry without going into your inbox.

1. Tell us a little about yourself

I live in Israel, and I’m the CEO of wise mobile solutions. We develop all kinds of mobile apps, especially for BlackBerry and iPhone.

2. What BlackBerry do you use now and what PDAs have you used in the past?

Now I have the BlackBerry Tour, use to have Bold 9000.

3. Why is the BlackBerry a good platform to develop on?

Tons of rich API’s. Java make development easy.

4. Other than your own, name your three favorite applications for the BlackBerry.

WorldMate Live, TuneWiki, Facebook.

5. What’s your favorite trick or feature that you use on your BlackBerry?

Alt lglg to see the device logs. click C for contacts.

6. What’s the most important feature that the BlackBerry lacks?

It’s slow relative to other mobiles.

7. Where do you see the focus of third party programs for the BlackBerry going over the next few months?

Music and games.

Wise Mobile Solutions Website: http://www.messagepeek.com/

We had the pleasure of interviewing Mr. Marc Bellinaso, Partner at Get Connected and AnguriaLab LLC to get his insights on the BlackBerry industry. Get Connected and AnguriaLab produce mobile technologies and platforms for the iPhone and Windows apps.

1. Tell us a little about yourself

I’m 28 and I’m Italian. I’ve been working as a software developer since I was in high school, developing mostly desktop- and web-based applications for Windows. Before last year I was 100% focused on Microsoft technologies, and I even wrote a few books on their ASP.NET web framework (most notably the Wrox’s bestseller “ASP.NET 2.0 Website Programming”) and talked at many conferences. During the last year however I decided I wanted to widen my horizons, and so started to learn Java programming for BlackBerry, and Objective-C & Cocoa for the iPhone. I’m currently a partner with the Italian software house Get Connected and AnguriaLab LLC which develops apps for the iPhone and other mobile platforms.

2. What BlackBerry do you use now and what PDAs have you used in the past?

I currently happily use a BlackBerry Bold (the best BB so far, imho), and an iPhone 3G. In the past I used some Windows Mobile devices (Qtek 8080, Orange SPV C500, HTC Tytn, Samsung Omnia), a Palm Treo 650, and the BlackBerry Curve 8300.

3. Why is the BlackBerry a good platform to develop on?

BlackBerry is a great platform to develop on because it’s pretty easy to work with, it’s very cheap (20$ for the RIM key to sign apps, and no cost for the development tools), and there is a potentially huge market. Most companies use BlackBerry devices, and many are looking for custom software that integrates into their LOB (line-of-business) apps. So there’s not only a large end-users market, there’s also a big enterprise-software market.

4. Other than your own, name your three favorite applications for the BlackBerry.

Well I think I’ll mention the ones I use most frequently, and they are the the Gmail, Gtalk and Live Messenger clients. I also use the Facebook client often They are all free, by the way!

5. What’s your favorite trick or feature that you use on your BlackBerry?

There isn’t one in particular, but the many keyboard shortcuts and the trackball really make the BB a easy and fast device to use. I love my iPhone as much as I love the Bold, but for different reasons. For the speed-of-use, the Bold remains unbeaten.

6. What’s the most important feature that the BlackBerry lacks?

I haven’t personally tried the Storm’s camera, but the Bold’s one really sucks. A 5mpx camera with good lens would be much apreciated. The BlackBerry is no longer a business-men-only devices, and the camera has become an important feature for many users. Also, more on-board memory for app storage and execution would be much appreciated. The software user-interface could also be much more nice and user friendly. The iPhone must be taken as an example for this.
As a developer I’d also like to have more APIs and more freedom…on the Symbian platform for example a developer can do almost everything…on the BlackBerry you can’t really integrate with the system apps (or change their default behavior) or handle some low-level events. You can for example intercept an incoming SMS, but you can’t delete it or move it to a separate folder. That’s why writing a SMS-blocking app is not easy to do, and actually impossible with RIM-approved and supported techniques. Still as a developer, it would be good to have an IDE to visually create the user interface of applications.

7. Where do you see the focus of third party programs for the BlackBerry going over the next few months?

I think more and more social apps will keep coming out, as well as games and apps for the spare time. This is a natural consequence of the BB becoming a device used outside of business environments.

GetConnected Website: http://www.getconnected.it
AnguriaLab Website: http://www.angurialab.com

We had the pleasure of interviewing Mr. Tunji Afonja, CEO and Founder of Gx5 to get his insights on the BlackBerry industry. Gx5 builds innovative software that run on the desktop, cloud and mobile devices.

1. Tell us a little about yourself

My name is Tunji Afonja. I am the founder and C.E.O of Gx5. We build compelling software with the purpose of enhancing the way people communicate, perform tasks, interface with software and interact with each other. We began in 2005 with a strong focus on developing for the Treo and have since expanded to other platforms that include the iPhone and BlackBerry. Our website can be found at http://www.gx-5.com.

2. What BlackBerry do you use now and what PDAs have you used in the past?

I currently use the Bold. Before I began developing software, I used the Palm m100, Kyocera 6035, Treo 650, Motorola Razr, HTC 8525, Motorola Q, Treo 755, iPhone, Palm Pre, BlackBerry Pearl Flip, BlackBerry Curve 8300, T-Mobile G1

3. Why is the BlackBerry a good platform to develop on?

Since BlackBerry has successfully expanded beyond the enterprise and into main stream, it opens up a world of opportunity for 3rd party developers to create compelling software that will reach millions of users.

4. Other than your own, name your three favorite applications for the BlackBerry.

Pandora, IM+, BerryWeather

5. What’s your favorite trick or feature that you use on your BlackBerry?

BlackBerry messenger. Keeps me always connected with friends and family.

6. What’s the most important feature that the BlackBerry lacks?

The QWERTY BlackBerrys need to become touch screen.

7. Where do you see the focus of third party programs for the BlackBerry going over the next few months?

Productivity apps that help us better communicate in real time for business or social purposes.

Gx5 Website: http://www.gx-5.com

We had the pleasure of interviewing Mr. Sylvain Dufour, CEO and Founder of Mobigloo LLC to get his insights on the BlackBerry industry. Mobigloo is a fast-growing developer of mobile software that is supported on a large range of mobile operating system including Palm OS, BlackBerry, Pocket PC, Windows Mobile for Smartphones, Symbian UIQ, Symbian Series 60.

1. Tell us a little about yourself

My name is Sylvain Dufour and I am the CEO and founder of Mobigloo LLCwhich has offices in Miami, Florida and Raleigh, North Carolina. I’ve been involved in Mobile development for over 10 years now, previously CEO of 995SOFT and VP Mobile Development at Ring2 Communications.

2. What BlackBerry do you use now and what PDAs have you used in the past?

I currently use a BlackBerry 8900. I’ve used a lof of devices in the past, started with a Palm TX, BlackBerry 7190, Pearl, iPhone, Storm, Bold.

3. Why is the BlackBerry a good platform to develop on?

Mainly because the same company (RIM) is both building the hardware and the OS. This makes development and testing easier.

4. Other than your own, name your three favorite applications for the BlackBerry.

I would have to say email first but I also like to play a few good games. Fierce Tower from NickelBuddy is fun and Mahjong from ConcreteSoftware.

5. What’s your favorite trick or feature that you use on your BlackBerry?

The ability to keep all my emails on the device and search through them if I have too. I think I currently have over 40,000 emails on my BlackBerry.

6. What’s the most important feature that the BlackBerry lacks?

Probably not a feature but the perfect BlackBerry devices has yet to be built, which would include the form factor of a BlackBerry Tour with a touch screen.

7. Where do you see the focus of third party programs for the BlackBerry going over the next few months?

I think developers are going to try to take advantage of unique features from newer devices and new versions of the OS such as building some applications around the 3.2MP camera, designing apps exclusively for the touch screen, including GPS and connectivity whenever possible, using the latest API to create vector graphic games, etc.

Mobigloo Website: http://www.mobigloo.com

Continuing with our series of interviews with various executives of BlackBerry software companies, we had the pleasure of interviewing Mr. Gary Mazo to get his insights into the BlackBerry industry. Mr. Mazo is VP and Partner at Made Simple Learning, which provides books and training services for BlackBerry Smartphones.

1. Tell us a little about yourself

My name is Gary Mazo and I am VP and partner at Made Simple Learning. We are a Smartphone Training Company – specializing in video tutorials and guide books for BlackBerry devices and, soon, iPhone and iPod Touch devices as well as the Palm Pre.

We offer a full “Training Center Approach” for every BlackBerry device which include Video Tutorials on your Computer, Videos on your Device and our Made Simple Guide book. Just go to www.madesimplelearning.com and choose your device. Because people learn differently, we offer videos to watch on your computer (while you hold your BlackBerry,) Video tutorials to take with you (on the Media card of the BlackBerry) and an Ebook for people who like a reference book. Our books are also all available on Amazon.com.

I live in Cape Cod Massachusetts with my wife, Gloria and various combinations of our six kids.
I also am a college professor for the University of Phoenix.

2. What BlackBerry do you use now and what PDAs have you used in the past?

Currently, I use the 8900. Before this, I was using the Storm, the 8320 and 8100. I have been working with the iPhone and the Palm Pre as well in preparation for relasing training materials for those devices. We have to use pretty much every device so we can get a feel for it and develop the guidebooks and video tutorials.

3. Why is the BlackBerry a good platform to develop on?

Our primary market is the enterprise market, and the vast majority are connected via BlackBerry devices. Also, RIM gives its developers great tools – from simulators to help forums. Because the BlackBerry is so widely used and because it is not particularly intuitive, people have a greate need for what we provide.

4. Other than your own, name your three favorite applications for the BlackBerry.

I am a big Viigo user – that’s where I get lots of my news. I also love Slacker and Pandora for streaming music throughout the day and Docs to Go is great for our work to collaborate on documents.

5. What’s your favorite trick or feature that you use on your BlackBerry?

I think that enabling the Home Screen Hot Keys – so I can just press one letter to get to my “options,” “Contacts” or whatever – that makes navigating the BlackBerry very easy.

6. What’s the most important feature that the BlackBerry lacks?

I think the BlackBerry is the most “complete” package for enterprise users. As RIM tries to capture more of the “consumer” market, I think that faster and more capable graphics processing that can lead to a better “gaming” experience will be important. “Apps” for devices like the iPhone are much more compelling than those for the BlackBerry at this stage. After using the Palm Pre for the last few weeks, I see the benefit of really good touch screen multi tasking OS – that is the future and BlackBerry will need to generate a totally new OS to stay competitive.

7. Where do you see the focus of third party programs for the BlackBerry going over the next few months?

The focus seems to be on productivity Applications as well as full featured Media applications to compete in the Smartphone marketplace. A more intuitive user experience coupled with advanced graphics and capabilities will continue to enhance the overall user experience.

Made Simple Learning Website: http://www.madesimplelearning.com

Mr. Marc Tassin is Senior Product Manager at Ilium Software. Ilium Software has been designing and creating information management tools, such as eWallet and Screen Capture, for mobile devices since 1997.

1. Tell us a little about yourself

I’m Marc Tassin, and I’m the Senior Product Manager at Ilium Software. I direct our overall product development, greenlight new projects, and oversee the ongoing development of our existing product line. I live just outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan where Ilium Software is located.

2. What BlackBerry do you use now and what PDAs have you used in the past?

I know there will be folks who strongly disagree, but I have a BlackBerry Storm which I personally feel is the best BlackBerry I’ve ever used. In the past, in addition to BlackBerry’s, I’ve used just about every device out there, from Windows Mobile to Palm to iPhone.

3. Why is the BlackBerry a good platform to develop on?

The BlackBerry offers us a market of people who are serious about their devices. BlackBerry’s are devices optimized for business use and the customers who have them are looking for strong business products. eWallet fits perfectly into this market.

4. Other than your own, name your three favorite applications for the BlackBerry.

Pocket Informant from WebIS is one I couldn’t live without. It’s a fantastic application and they’ve really covered all the bases with this app. Documents To Go from DataViz is another. Just an exceptionally useful piece of software. Last I have to list Sid Meier’s Pirates. The nostalgia factor is just too much to resist. I love this game.

5. What’s your favorite trick or feature that you use on your BlackBerry?

Honestly, I have to go with a feature – the Storm’s touch screen. I love it. It takes some folks a little getting used to, but once you get the hang of it the experience is excellent. I especially like the tactile touch. I’m not accidentally tapping the wrong thing when I’m navigating apps. Very nice.

6. What’s the most important feature that the BlackBerry lacks?

Wi-fi. For me, this is requirement for a modern device. As much as I like the Storm, the lack of WiFi is just an enormous oversight to me. With luck, we’ll see this rectified come fall.

7. Where do you see the focus of third party programs for the BlackBerry going over the next few months?

I think AppWorld is going to really reinvigorate the market. It’s going to inspire a lot of developers to try BlackBerry, and that means the existing developers will get pushed to do even better work to stay competitive.

Ilium Software Website: http://www.iliumsoft.com/

This is the eighth interview in our series of interviews with various CEOs of BlackBerry software companies. Mr. Robert Lee is the Founder & CEO of eMobiStudio Inc, a pioneer in cross-platform mobile application development. With advanced expertise in designing personal productivity software for smartphones, eMobiStudio helps its customers enhance the functionality and performance of their mobile devices.

1. Tell us a little about yourself

I am Robert Lee, Founder & CEO of eMobiStudio Inc, a pioneer in designing personal productivity software for BlackBerry. We have offices in Chicago, IL (US) and Beijing (China). Currently my company’s products include MemoryUp Pro (Mobile RAM Booster) and NetworkAcc (Mobile Network Accelerator).

2. What BlackBerry do you use now and what PDAs have you used in the past?

Currently I use a BlackBerry Curve 8900 and feel very comfortable with it. I used BB pearl, 7100g, and 8800 in the past.

3. Why is the BlackBerry a good platform to develop on?

In the past years, my company has been developing software for Symbian, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and Android Smartphone. But now we have turned our focus on Blackberry Platform. Why? BlackBerry has a fast growing market over other platforms like Symbian and Windows Mobile. Its J2ME based feature also makes it well positioned in the competition with iPhone.

4. Other than your own, name your three favorite applications for the BlackBerry.

TinyTwitter, Opera Mini, Google Sync

5. What’s your favorite trick or feature that you use on your BlackBerry?

WiFi feature on Blackberry is of great importance to me. It saves lots of my time when I deal with my work on BlackBerry.

6. What’s the most important feature that the BlackBerry lacks?

I always believe reliability and stableness are what BB users care most. No one can bear frequent system shutdown or long time application halting. Besides these, to be as user friendly as possible is also of great importance for new generations of BlackBerry.

7. Where do you see the focus of third party programs for the BlackBerry going over the next few months?

I have seen extraordinary growth in the areas of social networking, GPS, and online PIM related applications. And that will absolutely bring new opportunities to our third party program developers.

eMobiStudio Website: http://www.emobistudio.com/

We had the pleasure of interviewing Mr. Deddy Avianto, a Founder of ID-BlackBerry to get his insights on the BlackBerry industry. ID-BlackBerry is a leading mobile marketing firm in Indonesia that also creates BlackBerry themes.

1. Tell us a little about yourself
I am one of the founders of the first Indonesian BlackBerry community (id-blackberry) back in Sept 19, 2005, when the first BIS was introduced by Indosat in Indonesia. Since the BlackBerry domestic market keeps growing amazingly (FYI it reached 450% of growth in 2008) I then decided to also build a mobile portal dedicated to Blackberry related issues at idberry.com. People may guess that we are focused on BlackBerry themes creations, well it’s actually just our gimmicks. We keep on creating splendid and innovative themes to attract people to register on our mobile site and also to attract the attention of brand owners and agencies, since our main objective is to become the first and leader in mobile marketing, especially in BlackBerry platform. Why themes? Because we believe that themes are sexier than applications, and easier to penetrate. We’re also developing applications, but it’s well packaged behind. I should tell you that running this concept from home, idberry.com now has more than 18,000 registered members, and based on that success we are now replicating a similar approach for the biggest BlackBerry carrier in Indonesia. We are proud to announce that we are the only company that can provide the detail profile of BlackBerry users in Indonesia. More and more brand owners and agencies are coming to us lately. I’m very satisfied and very thankful to my team. To ensure our endless creativity, I just started a new mailing list idberry (http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/idberry/) focusing on theme making. In only a few days, more than 100 creators joined and they already showed great masterpieces. Talking about myself ? I’m now 42, married and have 2 wonderful boys and 1 beautiful princess

2. What BlackBerry do you use now and what PDAs have you used in the past?

I am now using BlackBerry 8900 painted in white and also BlackBerry 9500. I’ve been a gadget freak since the early 80s. I started using PDA in 1984, it was a Casio PB700. Here is the short list of devices I’ve used in the past: Texas Instruments Avigo, Palm100, Jornada568, iPaq3970, 2210, 3715, 6515, PocketLoox, Treo600, Toshiba e800, etc. Now I only use BlackBerry devices.

3. Why is the BlackBerry a good platform to develop on?

When I first started to convince people around here about the power of mobile marketing, the major problem was the connectivity. Either the connection was not available or stable, or users didn’t know how to get connected. Without connectivity, how can we convey messages? We have to move on from plain text messaging (a.k.a SMS). In BlackBerry, we don’t have that issue anymore. People are always connected and it’s up to our creativity to reach them. That’s why we are now focusing on mobile contents for BlackBerry.

4. Other than your own, name your three favorite applications for the BlackBerry.

What I use most are basically emails, instant messaging (BlackBerry Messenger & Yahoo Messenger) and social networking (Facebook & UberTwitter/ SocialScope) applications. I’m also a Viigo addict, for me it’s a must-have app. To complete my messaging needs, I often use screen capture utility, CaptureIt.

5. What’s your favorite trick or feature that you use on your BlackBerry?

It’s a mobile device. Keep it simple and handy. Never try to edit office documents, for me it’s enough to read at a glance, make notes/ revisions by emails and do the proper editing later with my notebook. Always reboot once a day to clean cache and gain memory and never forget to bring battery box or charger.

6. What’s the most important feature that the BlackBerry lacks?

Mmm. I only need bigger application memory or ability to install apps/themes to memory card (not by 3rd party dev) and longer battery life.

7. Where do you see the focus of third party programs for the BlackBerry going over the next few months?
We are eager to see the World Apps coming to our region. I think RIM should do some more acceleration on this; this will surely boost the mobile content business. And I also hope that local payment gateway will be available.

ID BlackBerry Website: http://www.idberry.com

This is the sixth interview in our series of interviews with various CEOs of BlackBerry software companies to get their insights into the Blackberry industry. Our sixth interviewee is with Mr. Guy Goldstein, the CEO of Pageonce. Pageonce, the leading Personal Productivity Assistant, provides a new fast, free and easy online consumer service that allows users to access view and manage all of their personal online accounts from a single application, anytime, anywhere via Blackberry and iPhone.

1. Tell us a little about yourself

I’m currently the CEO of Pageonce, a company that develop mobile applications for Smartphones. I’ve been working in the technology business for over 15 years, including product development, management and strategy. Prior to Pageonce, I was in an executive position of Corporate Development at HP software, responsible for mergers, acquisitions and strategy and before that, I spent 9 years in various R&D executive roles at Mercury Interactive. I live in the Silicon Valley, California

2. What BlackBerry do you use now and what PDAs have you used in the past?

I’m using BlackBerry Bold. I had many different models of BlackBerry in the past for the last almost 10 years. Including the first black and white devices that had only email

3. Why is the BlackBerry a good platform to develop on?

BlackBerry is a great device, the performance, the high resolution screen and the new touch capabilities in the Storm create an opportunity to build valuable applications. The BlackBerry users are very interested in productivity application which fits well to our model. Most important, now that BlackBerry has a store, the App World, it creates a strong distribution engine that enable developers to reach their end users.

RIM is a great company to work with, they work very openly with the developers. For any questions or technical help, there is always a person that is willing to help.

4. Other than your own, name your three favorite applications for the BlackBerry.

Viigo, WeatherBug, MySpace

5. What’s your favorite trick or feature that you use on your BlackBerry?

The Push technology is awesome. The fact that I can receive Facebook alerts the same way as emails is great. We plan to implement the same feature within the Pageonce application. This will alert users when bill is due, when they are reaching to their credit limit and more.

6. What’s the most important feature that the BlackBerry lacks?

Touch screen, all the BlackBerry devices should be touch. Not only the Storm. I love the Bold because of the keyboard, but would be great to interact with the screen.

7. Where do you see the focus of third party programs for the BlackBerry going over the next few months?

I believe it will grow in all the categories. More and more developers will see the potential of the platform and the power of App World. We will see more games, entertainment and productivity applications. I also believe that the big web player, such as Amazon, Expedia and other will jump into the mobile wagon in the near future.

Pageonce Website: http://www.pageonce.com