Interview: Mr. Vidal Graupera, of iambic Software

I’m proud to present this interview with the President of iambic Software. I’ve been an ActionNames groupie for quite some time now, so it’s been a real treat for me to get an inside look at the company and its products. I hope that you enjoy it as well.
ActionNames is the one program that I simply can’t live without. How did you get the idea for this application, and where do you see it going in future development?
The idea for Action Names came to me in an odd way and it is actually a long story…but I’ll try and give you the abbreviated version.
When iambic first started it was basically a one man operation — two when my wife Barbara was able to help out. I started iambic with a program called TimeReporter, which was a time-tracking software for the Newton. We would promote the product at various conventions and trade shows. While at these trade shows I would always ask people what they use their devices for with the intent of trying to sell them TimeReporter — we had some success, but the TimeReporter product is very specific and not everyone has the need to track their time and expenses. What I was hearing is that people wanted to track their contacts and schedules. In fact there was a lot of desire from Newton owners to have an advanced contact and schedule manager and there was a lot of buzz and curiousty about a particular program, which I don’t remember the name of right now, that had gotten some good press and which Apple was helping to promote.
The idea for Action Names developed while I was attending a convention at the Javitz Center in Manhattan and, as at previous conventions, I was selling TimeReporter, but hearing that people were looking for this contact and schedule manager for the Newton. Like other people I had spoken with, I began looking for the program and realized that the program, and the company who was developing it, were not at the show. So it was there, on the floor of the Javitz Center in Manhattan that I got the idea to develop an advanced contact and schedule manager and so Action Names was born within a couple of weeks.
As for your question on where I see Action Names going in the future, we are currently working on an major upgrade which will include many of the features our customers have been asking for. We have not finalized the release date of the update, but we expect it by the end of the year.
You seem to be moving quite aggressively into the “office” application arena with FastWriter and the latest upgrade to TinySheet. Do you think there’s enough room in this rather crowded market (QuickOffice, Documents to Go, WordSmith, etc.)?
We definitely feel there is room for another application in this arena, especially if that product offers enhancements, ease-of-use, and superior value that the other titles in the category do not.
At iambic, we pride ourselves on developing the most useful and innovative products we can for our customers. In many ways we offer good, solid, functionality without a lot of frivolous extras which, although they may look good on paper, are not so useful or necessary in the typical Palm owners everyday usage of their device. Our goal is to provide the most useful functions while at the same time keeping the size of the application down to a compact size — many of our competitors simply keep adding functions, whether practical or not, which, again, look good on paper but increase the programs’ size considerably which makes them not so useful.
Our Office suite, iambic Office was released this past Tuesday [October 2nd] and we’re very excited about it. iambic Office includes four powerful and practical programs: iambic Mail, TinySheet, TinyChart, and FastWriter. Each of these programs is easy-to-use, intuitive, has a familiar interface, and is compact. We have lots of great features in our Office suite including the ability to view and edit Word and Excel email attachments right on your Palm — a feature I use all the time when I’m away from the office. Our office suite also offers incredible value at only $39.95.
Ababall, iambic’s first game, was released a short while ago. How does entertainment software fit into your overall business plan, considering that your major focus until now appears to have been on personal productivity?
We recently switched our company slogan to “Advancing your handheld experience” and this is truly what we are in business to do. We want to provide the best possible products and user experience for our customers. Certainly we have focused on productivity type software in the past, but we also realize our customers are using their devices for much more than just work and so our focus has switched to truly advancing and enhancing your experience with your handheld. Ababall is our first game offering and it has received numerous rave reviews. In addition to keeping their schedule, working with their documents and spreadsheets, and tracking their time, our customers use their devices for leisure like reading ebooks in iambic Reader while on the subway, and now playing Ababall while waiting for flight…or anywhere.
What is your vision for handheld computing, especially considering that this market has expanded so rapidly over the last five years?
My vision is that the market will continue to grow, perhaps not at the breakneck speed it has in the past, but handheld devices are very powerful tools and many more people are finding a great deal of value in using these very portable and affordable devices as opposed to laptops for instance. iambic will continue to improve on our existing line of products and create new ones to meet the needs of the expanding customer base — the innovation of the new devices and how affordable they have become will continue to grow the market.
What surprises do you have planned in the future? I can’t tell you specifics, but we have some very exciting products coming up, both updates to existing products and new products which are in the works.
Any chance of porting some of your more popular applications over to the Pocket PC platform?
We are seriously following the Pocket PC market and considering our options for developing products for the platform. I feel this is an exciting time for the handheld market and Pocket PCs are definitely part of the overall excitement so we will certainly be looking into this platform further.
Thank you very much for your time.