Interview with Giorgos Sarris of Crazysoft
One of my favorite PDA game companies around is CrazySoft, developing arcade shareware games mostly for PalmOS and some for PocketPC. We had the pleasure to interview its CEO, Giorgos Sarris, from the sunny Greece.
1. How difficult is to port an application from PalmOS to PocketPC and the other way around?
Porting an application can be easy but can also be very difficult. It depends on the developer and many times the PDA manufacturer. To make it easier you must have in mind the porting when you first design an application.
A frustrating thing for a developer is the resolution of the PDA screens. Palm OS have 160x160, 320x320, 480x320 or 320x480. Imagine that we develop a game for most of these resolutions and then we want to port it for Pocket PC. We have to re-design all the graphics and most of the routines to fit in 240x320 and 480x640! This is the hard part.
If all PDA manufacturers agreed to use similar screen resolutions, porting would be a lot easier and all of you would see our applications in most of the models. But I don't see this coming'¦
2. Which platform yields the most revenue for you?
For us Palm OS is far more profitable. But this has to do that we are years in the Palm OS business and we have established marketing channels and alliances. We are new to the Pocket PC world and we cannot really say. Everybody can easily see the strength of a platform by many ways. For example go to Handango where you can download demo applications for both Palm OS and Pocket PCs and find a popular game that has a trial version. Compare how many downloads it has for Palm OS and how many for Pocket PCs. This will give you an idea of the market but only that.
3. Do you have plans to support the Smartphone PocketPCs?
They way they are now, NO. We have many difficulties when porting our games and it just does not worth it. But this seems to change with the launch of the new 2005 Windows Mobile Platform. As I have seen Microsoft tries to unify Windows Pocket PC and Windows Smartphones with this new platform. In the next days we will port our best seller 'ËPaintBall 2' for Pocket PCs 2003 and 2003 VGA and we will try also the new 2005 platform. After that we will decide if we should make the port to the 2005 Smartphone platform.
4. Do you have any plans to support Symbian?
Yes we have. Symbian market is growing rapidly. We have plans to port some of our games and apps in Series 80 Symbian PDA phones and maybe Series 60. We will have to see about that. If screen resolutions were more compatible we would already ported most of our applications. I'm not sure what do companies think when designing a new Pocket PC, Palm or Symbian PDA. It would be in the benefit of all if they used similar screen resolutions. But this problem started way back when they first established and I suppose they just continue it to be compatible with their previous modes.
5. You are a Greek company. How popular PDAs are in Greece?
This is a nice question. In Greece Palm OS is not popular. It never was and I suppose it will never be. Maybe because it was never really supported be Palm inc or by Greek companies. For example I'm not sure how many Treo 650 they sold here. I hope I'm not the only one.
Pocket PCs are commonly used by companies. They are really popular when it comes to business and not so popular for personal use. I think Pocket PCs in Greece is a strong market and it has to do with Microsoft's support. Translated OS and technical support near the customer is some of the reasons PPCs are preferred.
But this scene changes when it comes to mobile phones and symbian pda phones. Greeks have a passion for Hi-Tech mobile phones. 8 months to a year is usually how long they keep their phones. Everybody wants to have Hi-Tech features regardless if they use them or not. So Sybian PDAs are very popular in Greece. Every hi-tech, expensive, new, gadget technology that has to do with mobile phones and communication is well appreciated in Greece.