Reblog

Better Software Conference 2010 Part 1

I just attended the 2010 edition of Better Software conference in Florence. Overall it was a good conference with probably the best italian speakers around. The only problem for “Better Software” was that there was not enough software. Sure, many interesting talks and a lot of great informal chat during breaks. But there was very little code on the giant screens and way too many pictures. Many attendees in the room were indeed coding while watching the talk (there was also a good 50% twitter users typing though). Others were programming outside at the lobby. I hope to see more code the next year, perhaps with a specific track dedicated to languages, programming, tools and techniques. Code examples and live sessions are the most important learning tools for programmers in my opinion and managers should know how to code too! :)

End of the (mild) rant, now the good part. There are tons of smart programmers and entrepreneurs in Italy. I had the opportunity to meet many at the conference and I was inspired in several ways. I met also a lot of young programmers eager to learn and improve their skills. Sometimes you just need to stay away from institutionalized environment (where I used to work) to discover enthusiasm and energy and Better Software succeeded attracting exactly this kind of people. Good job.

Here’s a summary of the talk I attended and some thoughts they provoked. Don’t miss the conference next year, I won’t.

Stefano Sanna - Application store, potenzialità e trappole

Although Symbian sold 80M+ devices, apps created for Symbian OS are not selling that well. With just 2.5M of devices Apple is instead the best seller with 4 billion downloads and 185k published apps. Of course developers won’t invest in a platform that doesn’t sell applications. The conclusion is that the device spread is not enough to succeed if there isn’t a store capable of selling applications. Other interesting fact is that the best sellers are those (like Apple) who sell devices with a mandatory data contract. Without a data plan you can’t install apps directly from the device which is easier than synchronizing from a desktop. Speaking of the two main contenders, AppStore and Android, a surprise comes from the number of downloads per device which is roughly similar for the two platforms. But this is a potentially misleading metric because Android applications can be purchased anywhere, not just from the official store. Many applications sold outside the official channel are thus un-trackeable.

Omar Cafini - Sviluppare e vendere applicazioni per iPhone

Omar is an interesting mix between technical capabilities and entrepreneurship. He runs a couple of events: MarcheIN and 24hrsCamp that remembers me similar initiatives I found in the States. He’s also a programmer and with a few friends he’s running an iPhone development firm, mitapp, that contains already a well rounded application portfolio. Here’s a few points from his presentation about the experience of developing iPhone applications.

• Games software houses have big set of titles on the store, which is difficult to compete against as an indie developer. Unfortunately this means that quantity is sometimes more important than quality in the Apple Store.
• Prefer the team to the single developer more or less for the same reasons as above.
• Think twice before sending the app to the appstore. The visibility effect during the first moments of life is almost non-repetible. In other words the top of visibility is reached at the very beginning.
• The market is saturated with apps at the 0.99$ price target. Again another warning that is difficult to make a living when you’re forced to sell at such a low price.
• Some interesting marketing techniques help to achieve some results if carefully tailored before launching: in app purchase, redeem codes or contest based on redeem codes. Do not forget to reserve a domain and a supporting web site for the app.

Something I also experienced first person that Omar was talking about is the kind of users using iPhone apps. Don’t forget that the iPhone is now more a fashion object than a real instrument for mobile workers. Sad but true, be “stupid” designing applications and contents, because this is the kind of public you’re aiming at. Please be merciful if you ever see me creating a fart app! :)

Leandro Agrò - Una storia di SW dai protocolli alla startup

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to understand what the talk was about. I had reminiscences of Jini (the Java technology) at some point, but I’m not sure. I saw images, videos and heard craploads of buzzwords. I know they are creating (or created) an usb crocodile called iCrocco who remembers “feelings” that can be uploaded to the desktop when connected. Or maybe not. Who knows? Please enlighten me.

Andrea Santagata - Start-up web in Italia. Si può fare

This is the man behind several italian popular websites and services like Splinder. The talk was an objective take on the italian internet market as seen from the startups he is responsible for. Some of them succeeded some of them failed. I really appreciated he was so open about both, a rare example of honesty and sustainable business (he was concerned about employees families). The last “creature” is called Liquida and as far as I can tell it resembles WolphramAlpha for the italian market. Andrea is still waiting to call Liquida a success. At the end of the presentation he just nailed the biggest problem for the success of an internet startup: all citizens should be able to access a DSL connection. In other words Internet should be a government priority and be part of our rights. Needless to say, we are not driving the effort in Italy, quite the opposite.

It is taking longer than expected to re-organize my notes about the conference. I decided to split my report into multiple parts. I’m working on part 2, stay connected. Cheers.