Home
Features
Interview: AcroDesign Technologies
July 3, 2003
I was very fortunate to be able to get an exclusive interview with the man behind AcroDesign Technologies. I hope you enjoy getting to know a little be more about the company behind some of the great products I’ve been reviewing this week.
Could you share a bit about how AcroDesign Technologies got started?
I bought my first handheld (Palm IIIxe) during the spring of 2001, and quickly wrote a couple of programs for my Wife, including a shopping list application. The shopping list was great, and we still use it today, but I found programming for the Palm OS time consuming and somewhat tedious. Having received a PhD in Programming Languages, I started thinking about and developing a language for programming handhelds.
By the end of 2001, I had a prototype tool named X-Acute for my new language and was ready to start putting it to the test. As founder of Green Mountain Computing Systems, Inc. (www.gmvhdl.com), an Electronic Design Automation software company, I decided to form a new business unit that would focus on handheld software. Thus, AcroDesign Technologies was born. Since, then we’ve created several applications using the X-Acute platform and extended it support Pocket PC and Qt/Linux devices.
Do you think that handhelds already have or will in the future significantly change/enhance how people read the Bible and carry out their ministries?
Technology can sometimes be slow to take root in the Church setting, but many thousands of ministers and lay people have already incorporated handheld Bible software into their daily lives. Bible software is great technology that can enhance the reading of Scripture with the ability to instantly search the entire Bible, set multiple book marks, and even track what you’ve read. The PDA Bible brings all that power to the reader every place they go, and will have a much greater impact then desktop Bible software ever did.
The handheld is also a new medium that, like any other, can be used to present the gospel message to more people. I’ve put together one such program called Faith Quiz (http://www.truthlink.net/faithquiz). Faith Quiz is an nteractive program that presents the user with multiple-choice style questions about their faith and presents the gospel to them in way that relates to the way they’ve answered the questions. Of course, it’s free and can be easily beamed to your friends Palm!
I think there is little question that handhelds will become common place in modern society in and outside the Church. They will be particularly useful to minister’s, who are very often on the go, and will use them to manage visitations, Church members, and other aspects of their ministry. Today we see more and more video projection systems in Church’s across the country. Tomorrow, I would not be surprised to hear a beep from my handheld to signal me that its received today’s sermon outline of the wireless network as I walk through the Church doors on Sunday morning.
I haven’t seen too many religiously-oriented games out there. How did you get the idea for Bible Crossword and Bible Word Search?
We like to serve the Christian community as much as we can. Game software is very popular on PDAs, so the idea of a Christian game was an obvious step for us. I had wanted to do a Bible crossword for some time, but was not able to. Finally, we got a contract to create crossword and word search software for another company, and so it was a great opportunity for us to be able to do the Bible games at the same time.
There are plenty of Bible software programs available for handheld devices, but PalmStudy Bible is unique in including a complete program of study in one package. How did it all come together?
As I said, near beginning of 2001 it was time to start building some handheld applications with X-Acute and putting it to the test. I had never done any Christian software, but really wanted to somehow incorporate my faith into my daily work. I wanted to do a Christian title, but there were already a number of Bible applications out there, so we had to do something different. That’s when the idea of putting together a suite of useful tools together with the Bible.
PalmStudy was originally called PalmScribe, and included the KJV Bible, a Scripture memorization game, a topical index, and a reading record. PalmScribe never really took off. It wasn’t until we renamed it PalmStudy and started releasing other translations that it really became a success.
Can you share any tidbits about upcoming updates or new releases from AcroDesign?
We continue to add new tools and translations to PalmStudy and look forward to doing that for some time. We also have plans to release a new product this fall in the personal productivity category, but you’ll have to wait for the details on that one!
