MobileAppz

Can you provide some background information on what your company does?

We’re based in Dubai. We do mobile apps. We’ve been around for a couple of years now. We do BlackBerry apps, iPhone apps, iPad apps, that kind of thing.

What was your original goal or objective for undertaking the project?

We hired [MobileAppz] to do one of our apps for us. It’s several projects, actually. We’ve been working with them for about six to seven months now.

Could you tell me a little more about the scope of the project?

They’re designing a concept that we came up with here. It’s a mobile game that is more like a treasure hunt as opposed to a sit-on-your-couch kind of game. It’s been released for a couple of months now. We’re working through phase two now and starting phase three soon.

What platform is it available for?

It’s on the iPhone, Android, and soon on BlackBerry.

Can you give a very general cost estimate for the project?

Between $10,000 and $50,000, I would say. It’s still ongoing, but I doubt it will ever go above $50,000. We’re almost close to completion.

How happy are you with the work so far?

I’ve been very happy, actually. They worked hard. We put up heavy deadlines on them, and they’ve delivered. Obviously, everyone wants their apps done very quickly. They put in extra hours during the holidays. The quality has been pretty good. I have no complaints. They’re up until like two in the morning every day. I could see them working. I could see them testing things. So, I’m very happy with their work ethic.

Compared to other developers you’ve worked with, is there anything unique or special about MobileAppz?

They’re less rigid, I guess. Most places want you to be very specific about things, but [MobileAppz] can actually get it right away. You don’t have to specify it out, write it 100 times, and spell it out. You can talk to them, tell them this is what I want, and they can figure it out. Most developers in India I’ve talked to, you have to spell out each feature or functionality to a T. Otherwise, they won’t get it right. So, that’s one of the reasons why we’re happy with them as well.

Is there anything that you’d wish to do differently, or think that MobileAppz can improve upon?

I could have been more involved with the back-end. I kind of left that to them. I’ve done front-end mostly, and left the back-end to them. I wish I was more involved in that because, as much as it works, it’s not exactly how I envisioned it to be. But, that ‘s about it. The testing on their side was pretty thorough, but not thorough enough. We had to do some more testing on our side. But, other than that, it’s been pretty good.

What was your main business goal or objective for working with MobileAppz?

There are two. Number one: Increase the amount of applications that we want to double up during a short period of time. Number two: Bring down the cost of our development. These are the two objectives, and the reason we work with mobile apps.

How did you originally discover MobileAppz and choose to work with them?

MobileAppz was referred to one of the clients of ours who we were working with. In fact, our client referred MobileAppz to us because our client was working earlier with these guys for a couple of their applications. Our client decided to outsource the complete unit, and wanted somebody else to handle it. Automatically, their vendor also shifted along with us. When our client said, “These were the guys we were working with. They understand what we want.” We continue working with them. That’s how the relationship started.

We are happy. We have done close to 17 to 18 apps with MobileAppz, primarily on Android and Nokia platforms. We are pretty happy with the progress.

What parts of the development is MobileAppz generally involved in?

It’s a complete turnkey solution that we expect from mobile apps, and that’s how we work. They work on display technology through backend, so develop our backend systems as well most of the time. On the front end part, they are not that good at the UI label. But, normally, we provide the UI to them. But, they come back, two to three applications, the qualification has improved. I think they have hired a couple of designers who are helping us out to do the front end as well. They take care of the complete cycle, that’s the backend, the front end and anything else in terms of metadata support is required, editing it or writing it for us. They provide that kind of help. So, I’ll say full double up or support is given by them.

How happy are you with the results of their work so far?

If I rate it out of 10, we are a 7.5 to 8.5.

When working with MobileAppz, is there anything that you find unique or special compared to other developers you may have worked with?

Frankly, the extra that they have is their expertise in Nokia platform. This is something that you would also understand is hard to find these days. Of course, they have pretty good design team for Android. iPhone, we don’t work with them on iPhone, but I’m sure they have a good development group in iPhone as well because they keep sharing their updates with us.

Their biggest strength is their project management, and in technical affairs; their second biggest strength is Android and Nokia expertise.

Is there anything you think they can improve upon or that you’d do differently if you were to engage with them again?

Yes. The area of improvement that I see is their expertise in wireframing. Our process that we work with is normally, we would double up wireframe concept, and then to the handset manufacturers, all the Telecom operators, and then get approval on the project. We normally would like to work with partners who have that kind of expertise who can support us in that process. They are coming up to a certain level, but I will rate it at 5 to 6 out of 10.