Tweet

Palm releases kit to software developers

Written by: Daryl James

Article Overview: After a long wait and much anticipation, software developers can finally gain widespread access to the Palm Mojo Software Development Kit to create apps for the Palm Pre. On Thursday, the Mojo SDK was made available on the company’s webOS developer page, which also offers guidelines, a forum for developers and other documentation intended to assist in the process. But will the release of the kit help alleviate the lack of applications available on the company’s new smartphone, a factor viewed by some as a potential roadblock to its success?

Palm releases kit to software developers

After a long wait and much anticipation, software developers can finally gain widespread access to the Palm Mojo Software Development Kit to create apps for the Palm Pre.

On Thursday, the Mojo SDK was made available on the company’s webOS developer page, which also offers guidelines, a forum for developers and other documentation intended to assist in the process.

But will the release of the kit help alleviate the lack of applications available on the company’s new smartphone, a factor viewed by some as a potential roadblock to its success?

Since its release in June, critics have praised the Palm Pre’s usability, with CNET saying that its "multitasking capabilities and notifications system are unparalleled" and engadget.com saying that it takes care of an "astounding amount of things" compared to competing smartphones.

However, at the same time many industry commentators complained about how few innovative apps were available for the Pre, particularly in comparison to the iPhone. In fact, the complete catalog contained only 30 apps for download one week after launch, according to MocoNews.net.

Apps – and the buzz they create – have been a main driver of the success of the iPhone. While some users would jump for the chance to switch phones, many others would only do so if they knew they could immediately start downloading versions of their favorite applications, as well as trying out creative new options.

In the early stages of the phone’s release, Palm seemed to have done little to respond to this criticism. The company did create an early access program for software developers and invited interested parties to apply beginning in April.

However, some commentators such as Stephanie N. Mehta of Fortune questioned whether developers would be likely to rush to apply their resources to developing apps for the Pre before they had real evidence of its probable success. The wireless sphere is already crowded with different operating systems – does it really need another?

For its part, the firm has said that it hopes developers will be able to quickly adapt to the webOS operating system because it uses standard web technologies that are already familiar to many programmers.

On his blog, Jon Zilber of Palm called the early access program "successful" and said that users have been responding positively to the Palm webOS apps that are available.

"Even in its initial beta stage, over 1.8 million apps have been downloaded from the beta app catalog since Palm Pre was released less than six weeks ago," he wrote.

Zilber also said that developers will be able to use the App Catalog submission process starting this fall and announced a number of upcoming events aimed at developers. These include a meetup at the Palm headquarters in Sunnyvale, California on July 28 and events in 73 cities across the world which will take place on August 8.

With Palm’s release of the SDK and push for developers’ contributions, the race to catch up with Apple is heating up.

Recently, Apple announced that iPhone and iPod Touch users have downloaded more than 1.5 billion programs from the company’s App Store. The store currently has more than 65,000 applications available, creating a tough act for other mobile companies to follow.

Related Articles
  Software developers can start earning from Palm Pre apps in September
  Episurveyor creates surveys and seamlessly publishes them to mobile devices.
  Agile Software Development – An Overview
  Your software is only a tool
  Mobile Web Design

Article Tags: anticipation, buzz, cnet, industry commentators, interested parties, iphone, launch, long wait, mehta, mojo, multitasking capabilities, notifications, roadblock, sdk, software developers, software development kit, stephanie, usability, webos, wirele



Related Forum Posts
Re: What Do You Outsource Mostly? - Writers are my biggest OS cost, but also have software developers and a marketing team.
Re: And Software? - [quote="Takuya":e2n4run5] I use the "Press Release Equalizer" to submit my releases after complying with all the different guidelines set forth each PR website. The tool is great to automate the submission process but it's more effective if you write multiple releases promoting one event. Tak[/quote:e2n4run5] Ok, been checking into PREQ and can't find it, sorta. Is it a website, or a piece of software? I keep finding people who talk about it, but when I check any of the links that they post, I get: "The server at hop.clickbank.net is taking too long to respond." So, could someone elabourate on this? Thanks.
Re: And Software? - [quote="mphcoach":2wl85wsg]With the potential benefits of PRs, is there a piece of software that has a value in auto-submission, or is this best to do by hand?[/quote:2wl85wsg] I use the "Press Release Equalizer" to submit my releases after complying with all the different guidelines set forth each PR website. The tool is great to automate the submission process but it's more effective if you write multiple releases promoting one event. When writing one release and submitting to PR websites, it gets accepted, but the news portals like Google News only picks up the first release. Because Google does not see any benefit in just filling up the search engine results with the same old content, it only picks up the first release. So when I use a tool like that, I create a few different releases and only submit to a few major PR websites. That's plenty of appearance I make compare to my competitors and it seems to work well. To summarize my experience, if I use a tool like PR Equalizer, my releases appear on individual websites, but the search engines only return the first result as long as I am submitting the same release to different websites. To remedy this issue, I write a few different releases announcing the same event, and submitting to different PR websites. This way, when a search is conducted, search result returns by pulling different search results, content, titles from different websites, making more appearances and dominating the first few top search results. Warmest Regards, Tak
Marketing Your Software To The Public - Hello! Over the past few months I have been experimenting with no cost ways to effectively market our "Time Management" software. We have created two products. The one solution is geared towards lawyers with special features to handle accounts for The Office of the Children's Lawyer and Legal Aid. For those lawyers who deal with these accounts you will know what i talking about. Other software developers have been contacted but none have included such features in their products claiming that the market was too small. The other product we have created can be configured to work for almost any time related business. With the "Profiling System" you could virtually run any number of business form just one copy. We have been talking all advice from the wonder people who have taken the time to provide us with their advice. From this we have come up with the following results: We sent over 60,000 directed email newsletters - received 7 inquiries and 9 downloads. We have listed our company on over 40 business promotion websites. - traffic increased slightly We sent up developer account with Esellerate to enable us to sell our products online. Once the financial transaction has completed the purchaser can download the software immediately. Other affiliate resellers have are also promoting our products. - Awaiting sales We have posted our products on over 400 repositories as shareware. We can do this because we have a 90 day trial period. We have further, created links to many of the higher traffic sites and have increased traffic to our site. - In the past 2-1/2 months we have received over 10,600 downloads. I hope this information proves useful to other small developers trying to get a start. Boomer
Marketing ideas? - Hi I am from a software company. We have developed software like payroll software, time attendance software and HR software. Now we are focusing in marketing. Can you share some best marketing ideas?


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Qualities of Leadership Part 1

Quick Tips on Buying a Business

Bootstrapping Your Start Up Business.

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.