Mike Barnes (NickelBuddy), Sylvain Dufour (Mobigloo), Keith Pichelman (Concrete Software)

The best thing about attending an event like WES is that it gives you the opportunity to talk to people in the business face to face and learn more about what's going on in the world of BlackBerry. That said, I was stoked to sit down in the hotel lounge Sunday night and ask three of the top game developers for BlackBerry some questions on behalf of CrackBerry Nation. If you've ever bought a game for your BlackBerry, the odds are pretty good one of the guys pictured above was behind it... think Nintaii, Air Traffic Control, Pirates!, Aces Texas Hold'em, MarbleTrap and Wordcaster to name just a few.

This is one of those articles you definitely need to read - we talk about app pricing, challenges in developing for BlackBerry, get a glimpse of what's coming down the pipe and more. I hope you enjoy this BlackBerry Game Developer Q&A... it was fun putting this together. And big thanks to Mike, Sylvain and Keith for participating!

Sitting Down With Jeff McDowell, Research In Motion's VP of Global Alliances

On the morning of the final day of the BlackBerry Developer Conference, I had the opportunity and privilege to sit down with RIM's VP of Global Alliances Jeff McDowell to talk about the newly-announced BlackBerry Application Center and BlackBerry Application Storefront (keep in mind the "Application Storefront" will likely launch under a different name, but we'll keep referring to it as such for now). It was at the keynote session the morning prior where Jeff and Mike Lazaridis brought word of these endeavors from RIM, so I was excited to learn more about these plans straight from the source.

Coming out of the BlackBerry Developer Conference, one might think that the App Center/App Store announcement was the biggest news, but after speaking with Jeff and attending the three day conference, it became apparent to me this first-ever DevCon will go down as monumental in RIM's history books for something very different - something that never went out in a press release via Marketwire. The BlackBerry Developer Conference marks a new attitude for RIM, and those who attended DevCon in person saw it and felt it. The enterprise, security-focused roots are still there, but DevCon proved that RIM is also opening up and becoming a more sociable company. This is HUGE.

Keep reading after the jump for a whole lot of BlackBerry Goodness you won't find anywhere else.

If you've been around the online BlackBerry world for any amount of time, you'll be familiar with the 'handle' of the founder of DataOutages.com. In addition to being a CrackBerry.com Forum Moderator (he joined the site shortly after it launched!), John Kleinschmidt, aka Audit, has been keeping himself extremely busy over the past year thanks to a project born out of necessity... DataOutages.com. A non-profit site, supported by a team of dedicated volunteers, DataOutages.com keeps those of us "not on the inside" up to date with the status of our BlackBerry's data. Full Interview after the jump!

Weekday evenings when I'm working away at the computer I usually keep the tv on in the background and come midnight watch CBC's The Hour. Go figure - the one week where I leave the country is the one week they have RIM's co-CEO Jim Balsillie on the show for an interview! I have to give a big shout out to my DAD of all people for tipping me off on this one... I gave him a call last night to let him know the CTIA/Vegas trip was good, and the first thing he asks is if I saw the "BlackBerry guy" on tv! Speaking of DADs, it's a little known fact that Jim Balsillie's father is from Winnipeg, which just also happens to be the birthplace of CrackBerry.com! If you have ten minutes to spare, the video above provides a great personal look at one of the two men at the helm of Research in Motion.

And if you want to round out your perspective on RIM's big kahunas, Business Week published an interview yesterday with RIM's other co-CEO, Mike Lazaridus. In this interview, Mike talks about building a successful R&D culture and his thoughts on a decade of sustainable innovation. You can take a read here. 

After pounding the conference floor at the Wireless Enterprise Symposium and hiding out in the demo theatres reviewing the myriad solutions on display at this year’s impressive show, we just had to consider the cunningly simple Ring2 Conference Controller to be one of the Best Ideas of WES 2007. The application allows call leaders to take remote control of their conference calls to see and control who’s on the call, solving those every day conferencing nightmares that we all face. We sat down with Michael Hughes, Ring2’s Co-Founder and Co-CEO, to learn more…

What is Ring2?
Ring2 Conferencing is a pioneering audio-conferencing software and services company – offering the world’s first remote control of dial-in conference calls control from a mobile device.

What does Ring2 do?
Ring2 solves everyday problems and associated with business audio-conferencing, in the simplest possible way.

In the world of collaboration, basic dial in audio-conferencing is by far the dominant part of the market representing over 80% of revenues. Why? In talking with customers, we learned that users like the simplicity of sending out toll free numbers and access codes to participants with the confidence that people will be able to easily get on the call. Ease and simplicity is key, the fear of technical embarrassment is paramount. However, if you ask the same users about their experiences on conference calls, most have anecdotes about missing participants, unknown participants and the perennial problem of the person joining from a noisy environment who does not know how to mute their phone.

Ring2 keeps the simplicity and ease of dial in conferencing, but adds optional, easy-to-use remote control to help call leaders overcome the frustrations they face on conference calls each day. The core of Ring2’s service works just like traditional dial in conferencing where participants are sent a toll free number and a participant code so they can join the call and if the users so choose, they can use this basic functionality and nothing more. However, as soon as the first person joins a leader’s conference, Ring2 pushes a notification to the call leader’s BlackBerry letting them know that someone has joined their call. From there a single click allows the leader to ‘see’ dynamically who is on the call by name and then choose to join the call from any phone. During the call, new participants are identified to the call leader by name on their BlackBerry rather than a mysterious ‘boop’ and the leader can add missing participants from the BlackBerry address book or control individual legs to mute a noisy line or put a participant on hold for a private conversation.

The Ring2 Conference Controller gives call leaders visibility and control over their conference calls reducing stress and increasing security for all concerned.

What are the typical problems and headaches with business audio-conferencing?
These problems include:

• Who is on the call and who is missing in those first few minutes which are full of ‘boops?’
• Is anyone listening in who shouldn’t be?
• How can you be sure others have dropped off the call when you want a private side conversation?
• How do you add someone into the call?
• How do you mute the person in their car or the noisy airport?

Why remote control with a BlackBerry? Wouldn’t a desktop solution work just as well?
The call leader is only at their desk for approximately 30 percent of conferencing calls, and according to Wainhouse Research, approximately 40 percent of conference calls are made from good old-fashioned meeting rooms. Therefore, a desktop-based solution is not that useful for collaboration. Why not utilize the trusty BlackBerry that users will always have with them?

Why not just use a solution with richer collaboration capabilities?
User issues with audio-conferencing are not so much that they need richer collaboration capabilities, but rather that their voice calls are subject to basic everyday headaches of visibility and control that have been overlooked in the quest for feature-rich collaboration. One of the main barriers to adoption of a richer collaboration service is that users are scared of them. They are worried that they will make mistakes (on the desktop interfaces) while on their important conference calls.

On top of this, there is an adoption issue: why would a user who is used to going into a conference room and dialing into a call think to type in a URL, username and password to take control of the call? It is not a natural part of the way that people currently behave compounded by the fact that users often don’t have easy access to their PCs. As a result, utilization rates of broader collaboration solutions are very low, below 5% by most estimations, whereas Ring2 by pushing the pertinent information to the device that the user will most likely have with them at the exact time that they need this information is able to achieve a utilization rate in excess of 60%.

How does Ring2 overcome barriers to adoption?
First, Ring2 keeps the user interface super-simple (sequential questions that can be answered in seconds rather than multi-capable screen views). Next, Ring2 includes the fewest necessary features that solve real problems. It does not manifest capabilities of the technology for technology sake. Thirdly, in an enterprise environment, Ring2 believes in building the technology and service on what people use and are comfortable with today. Finally, by pushing the pertinent information to the user exactly when they need it, we ensure that the solution is not forgotten about in the fluster before joining a call. This is especially important as a service provider vs. a technology company. Service providers need fast adoption and mass usage to make money and can less afford evolution to a new technology.

Who are Ring2’s customers?
Ring2 customers operate in all sectors all around the world including law, banking, private equity, consulting, technology, media, recruitment and manufacturing, from multi-nationals to small businesses.

Thank you for your time and congratulations on being consider one of the Best Products at WES 2007.
Thanks very much, it’s a great honor for us and we appreciate you taking the time to learn more about what we do. See you next year!

Digby is a mobile commerce service that lets you shop for stuff right from your BlackBerry. Recently Dave Sikora, CEO of Digby, was kind enough to sit down for an interview…

Q: Do you intend to remain focused on brick and mortar stores for your catalog, or do you plan to open it up to sell software as well?

A: From the beginning we have remained focused on addressing the unique challenges of buying and selling physical goods and making mobile commerce of these goods easier for the user and the retailer will remain a core focus for us. Mobile commerce for software is very different than physical goods with its own unique set of challenges and requirements. We may add software in the future, but only when we feel that we can provide the user as great a mobile experience as we have been able to provide them for physical goods.

Recently we sat down with Marc Bolh, CEO of Ascendo, Inc. Ascendo makes a number of very popular titles for BlackBerry, including Ascendo Fitness, Ascendo DataVault, and Ascendo Photos. Marc was kind enough to endure a little Q and A session with us. Check it out…

Hi Marc, thanks for taking the time to chat with us. So what do you make of the agreement between Facebook and RIM?

Not much there from a technology standpoint but I think it was a good idea from a marketing perspective. Facebook is trying to position itself as a business platform and BlackBerry is trying to appeal to younger users. So it’s kind of like inviting Lindsay Lohan to a corporate bash.

DDH Software’s HanDBase has long been one of the top database programs for other mobile platforms, such as Palm, Windows Mobile and Symbian. Now that HanDBase is available for BlackBerry users, could you give us an introduction of your company and the driving philosophy behind HanDBase?

Dave: Sure- DDH Software’s been in this space since 1997, when Palm (then Pilot’s) and BlackBerry were very new concepts. At the time, the company was just me, and I was doing the coding on my lunch hour and at night, and I started by bringing the first multi-language translator program to the Pilot. Thankfully, that grew fast into a full time endeavor with the introduction of several other products leading up to the launch of HanDBase in mid-1998. We experienced our most rapid growth from late 1999 through 2002 when the PalmPilot became a household name and was the “iPod” of that era.

It's not everyday that a new BlackBerry application becomes available for download and immediately becomes a best seller, but in the case of BBSmart's Email Viewer that is exactly what happened. More than that, BBSmart's Email Viewer has remained at the top of the best sellers list for weeks, and I have the feeling it's going to stay that way for a while!

Neil Sainsbury (NS) is the brain behind BBSmart and the company's Email Viewer. I first talked to Neil a few months ago, when he was still in the beta testing phase of his yet-to-be named email application. And even now, in the current state of busyness Neil is experiencing (that's what happens when your first BlackBerry application is a huge success), he was kind enough to take some time to talk to CrackBerry.com (CB) and answer a few questions...

CB:  How long have you been a berry user?
NS:  I've been using the BlackBerry now for about 2 years.

CB:  What was your first BlackBerry? What device are you currently running?
NS:  My first one was an old chunky 7230 and I'm currently using the 8700. I still have the 7230 sitting around actually and even pull it out on occasion - they really got the keypad right with that model!

CB:  Where are you based out of?
NS:  We're based out of sunny Brisbane, Australia. Beautiful location but with all the great weather not exactly the most conductive to sitting inside and programming!

CB:  I understand BBSmart Email Viewer is your first Blackberry Application.  How did you get turned onto developing for BlackBerry, and how did you identify the opportunity of making BlackBerry's plain old email application look great?
NS:  Yep, this is BBSmart's first application. I actually started out developing for the BlackBerry through my work. I was a software engineer working in the finance sector and developed an application to deliver quotes, news, emails, etc. to traders on the go (they ALL have BlackBerries). I really enjoyed this work and must have shown a real knack for it as well - the feedback we received from traders was amazing and now the user base for that application just keeps growing and growing. Right now some of the biggest financial companies in the world are using this application religiously. After this, I just knew the BlackBerry was for me. Prior to getting into the BlackBerry also, I'd done quite a bit of development work with other "mobile" devices. I say "mobile" because I'm talking here about EFTPOS terminals, the things you use to swipe your debit or credit card in stores. Try though I might, I could never come up with an elaborate money rounding/siphoning scheme!

Ring2 Conference Controller for BlackBerry

After pounding the conference floor at the Wireless Enterprise Symposium and hiding out in the demo theatres reviewing the myriad solutions on display at this year’s impressive show, we just had to consider the cunningly simple Ring2 Conference Controller to be one of the Best Ideas of WES 2007. The application allows call leaders to take remote control of their conference calls to see and control who’s on the call, solving those every day conferencing nightmares that we all face. We sat down with Michael Hughes, Ring2’s Co-Founder and Co-CEO, to learn more… 

PinStack.com is a free Internet forum community for BlackBerry users. It started in 2004 and has become an extremely popular destination and a valuable resource for BlackBerry owners. Pinstack’s founder, Hayden James, was kind enough to give us a few minutes for a quick chat.

Magmic Games is a leading developer and publisher of mobile entertainment, offering a wide variety of games for BlackBerry handsets. John Criswick, founder and CEO of Magmic Games was kind enough to take a few minutes and talk with us.

First of all, how do you pronounce your company’s name? Is it a “g” like in “magic”, or a “g” like in “magma”?

John: It is a G like in magma, in fact the word magmic has the same roots as magma as in a “slow moving hard to stop fluid”.

Last summer you launched a new division called “Bplay” to focus exclusively on the BlackBerry community even though the name “Magmic” is practically synonomous with BlackBerry games. Why did you feel the need to create a new BlackBerry-only identity?

November 30th, 2006: Hi Morgan, thanks for agreeing to talk with us today. Let’s start with a little background information. How long have you been interested in mobile software?

Morgan: Absolutely, my pleasure. I’ve been a mobile applications enthusiast since I bought my first Palm Pilot in 1997. I became interested in the business side of mobile software when I joined Palm, Inc. at the beginning of 2000. One of my first projects was to take a look at the Palm applications market and figure out how we could make it bigger.

Keith Pichelman, CEO of Concrete Software was kind enough to take some time away from his busy schedule and give us a phone interview today.

Thank you Keith for taking the time to answer our questions. Concrete Software has emerged very quickly as a leader in consumer software for mobile devices. Could you tell us a little bit more about how your company got started?

Keith: Sure, we’ve been around since 2003 and are based in Minneapolis, MN. In late 2003 we won the Nokia Series 60 best personal productivity application for our Driving Log application and shortly after that were the first company on many mobile platforms to have a Texas Hold’em game which was really our first big hit. From there we expanded out to many other mobile platforms including BlackBerry.

Concrete Software was founded on the idea of making innovative mobile software that runs across many mobile platforms. There are so many software titles in the market that building the same old product without innovation will only go so far. When we build a new product there always has to be a reason why we believe the product is something the market needs and if there is a similar product in the market we make sure we differentiate ourselves. We also want to be able to provide our customers our products no matter which mobile device they are on. This helps our sales channels so they don’t have to sell our products to a small subset of their customers.

Concrete Software currently offers many products. Which of your programs are the most popular, and why?

Keith: Our Aces Texas Hold’em game is still the most popular game. First, Texas Hold’em has a huge market, which probably doesn’t surprise many people. It’s the type of game that has a very broad audience. You can see this same type of audience for most of the top selling mobile games. Card games, Sudoku, chess, logic games, they all have a wide audience.

Now just because you make a game for a wide audience, doesn’t mean it will take off. We really sat down and designed the game for the mobile device and tried to make the game play the best it could be. This includes the special scrolling layout to handle huge tables and also using content experts to make sure the game play was enjoyable.

BlackBerry devices are running Java; how does the software development compare to other platforms such as Palm OS and Windows Mobile?

Keith: As part of our development process we always design and first build our products in Java. This works out well and allows us to easily work with most mobile phones and BlackBerry devices. From there we port to C++ platforms including Palm OS and Windows Mobile. So for us the main work is done and designed using Java, while the C++ is on the porting side and really depends on a good reference Java side that is clear and well written.

BlackBerry software is usually sold online or OTA (over the air). What are some of the benefits, and challenges, of this type of distribution?

Keith: Selling BlackBerry software OTA makes the consumers experience of purchasing software a good one, people don’t have to go through all the extra install steps usually needed when installing. The main challenge then is that we want anyone who has a BlackBerry to be able to buy our software and not worry about if they have a 7100 or an 8700. This means we have to support all the different BlackBerry screen sizes in one application. Supporting all the different screen sizes then challenges us to keep the total size of the software down so that it can be delivered OTA.

With the introduction of new consumer devices from RIM, do you believe users will start using more software on their phones?

Keith: I do. I believe this is because RIM is moving towards a philosophy where they are creating devices that are geared towards other segments besides the business user. The perfect example of that is the new Pearl BlackBerry that was recently released. As long as that does well, which it seems to be doing well so far, we should see more devices built for more segments.

Which mobile device do you currently use day-to-day?

Keith: Well, being in the industry that we are in, I tend to switch often so that I know what is available and can compare and see what the differences are. So right now I’m using the Pearl since it was just recently released; I’m still trying to get used to not having the scroll wheel on this phone!

What are the three most-used applications and/or games on your handheld?

Keith: Email, for obvious reasons. The calendar/scheduler that comes on devices and the alarm clock. I guess there isn’t anything too exciting. I tend to have our latest game on that is in a beta or alpha stage as well so I can do a little testing myself.

Lastly, do you have any “sneak peeks” of upcoming applications or other surprises you’d like to share with our readers?

Keith: Sure, why not! We will be coming out with a version of Aces Blackjack for the BlackBerry sometime in mid to early December. We should also have a number of exciting releases in early 2007 but I can’t give away too much!