Interview: Mr. John Chaffee, SplashData

SplashData Week here at PocketGoddess.com concludes with an interview with the company’s president, Mr. John Chaffee. Read on for an exclusive interview!
SplashData has emerged very quickly as a company that designs excellent products for the Palm OS platform. Could you tell us a bit more about how your company got started?
The company was founded in the fall of 2000 by myself and a friend I had previously worked with at a PC software company. We have both been in the traditional PC software business for 12 or 15 years and saw an opportunity in the handheld space. We wanted to apply what we learned in the PC business to the handheld space and provide a more professional level of product quality, value, and customer service than was being provided by many of the handheld developers at the time.
The name of your new application bundle, SplashWallet, evokes a long-desired concept in which Palm devices serve as “wallet replacements” in many ways. What is your vision of the future in this regard, and how does SplashData fit into that?
That’s exactly what we envision — a future when you can use your handheld as a replacement for a traditional wallet for conducting/recording transactions, storing personal identification, managing shopping lists and sharing pictures of your loved ones. We’ve got a great start with our current product offerings and it will only get better as the virtual wallet infrastructure for conducting secure transactions evolves.
What is your vision of handheld computing, especially considering that this market has expanded so rapidly over the last five years?
We think the handheld market will continue to grow and diversify as Palm OS licensees like Handspring, Sony, Samsung and others continue to push the envelope by making smaller, more powerful, integrated devices. The smartphones, in particular, are of great interest to us as we feel they represents the ideal platform for virtual wallet applications.
Do you have any plans to start developing applications for the Pocket PC Platform?
We’re keeping a close eye on the PocketPC platform. If and when it reaches a reasonable marketshare, we won’t hesitate to support it. For now, however, we feel our resources are best spent focusing on the Palm OS platform.
Lastly, do you have any “sneak peeks” of upcoming applications or other surprises you’d like to share with my readers?
We’re working hard on updating all of our existing apps as well as introducing new ones that fit well within our virtual wallet suite. One of the features I’m most excited about that we’re currently working on is the ability for spouses to synchronize information between their two handheld devices either by syncing to the same desktop or via beaming. It’s a perfect solution for the type of apps we’re developing since much of the information you’d want to store in your virtual wallet (financial transactions, identification, shopping lists, pictures of the kids, etc.) is information you’d want to share with your spouse.
Thank you very much for your time. I’ve learned quite a bit about your company’s philosophy, and I’m looking forward to more great products in the future.