Hi, my name is Jonny and I'm the most recent person to join the team at the lab. My background is in games software, but I decided to delve into enterprise software development as I felt the area could learn a thing or two from the world of games from an aesthetic and performance standpoint. When writing games software it is not just important to focus on functional requirements but also the overall experience.
Imagine hitting the fire button on a shooting game, and suddenly a message appears with a big exclamation mark saying, "Error 127888876AB2 - Please contact your system admin", this certainly wouldn't be acceptable to a gamer paying £40+ for a game, so why should it be acceptable in enterprise software where the cost is often much higher?
Many would say that the bugs in the latest release of any enterprise product can just be patched with version 2.0.3.7.1.2.735 and everything will be fine, but you never had to buy a game for your PS2, and subsequently had to patch it with a mass torrent of updates and bug-fixes. This is because the developers knew that if they didn't get it right the first time, then they were screwed, and in a sense the constraint of being unable to patch the software forced the developers to ensure the code was stable, and quality design practices were followed wherever possible.
Getting this level of quality design and bug-free code written for enterprise software isn't as difficult or time consuming as some may imagine if you have developers with the right mind-set. The important thing to realise is that, just because we can release a mass of bug fix patches doesn't mean that this should be used as an excuse to release poor quality software.
Since starting here a few months ago I've been focussing my efforts on mobile software development as the mobile space is fast becoming a very exciting place to be, as it matures into a place for serious developers and equally serious software. My first port of call was iPhone development as it is a nice, clean and aesthetically pleasing platform to develop for, that is currently in vogue within the mobile marketplace. So what better way to improve the user experience our products provide, and bring their powerful functionality to the place a large number of customers will find it most useful.
For our soon to be released product solomon, I have been working hard to produce an iPhone app that makes use of all the features the main CRM provides, but with simplistic design and a good user experience in mind. This will make the app very easy for iPhone users to get to grips with, and will provide a simple yet powerful way to keep in touch with and manage your business contacts whenever-wherever. Here is a sneaky peak into the app, and some of the features it will provide.
Over the coming months I will be developing fixx and solomon apps for iPhone, Blackberry and Android. Developing for this range will provide the majority of our customers with the ability to take full advantage of our products at the times when they are unable to get to a computer. Keep checking back for updates on how development is going, and previews of what is happening with our mobile products.
Firstly, apologies if you have arrived here through your feed reader which has suddenly been flooded with every blog post made by hedgehog lab. We just deployed a massive re-design and re-code of our main website, which meant that a few things were bound to go awry. This should be fixed now, so please feel free to "Mark all as read" and move on.
Moving onto the good news, as you can see, we have taken on-board nearly a year's worth of feedback all our loyal customers have provided and spent some long sleepless nights to build and deploy our brand spanking new website. It's also a great opportunity for me to provide an update on our products and summarise our new website.
Website re-design and re-write
Most software companies are guilty of spending far too much time re-designing (lesser crime) and re-writing (greater crime) their website and internal tools every so often instead of focusing on, err, writing software for customers.
Lest you think we fell into this trap, our site re-design and re-write is actually in response to overwhelming customer feedback. Our previous site had a good enough design and a basic set of tools but there were constant complaints about both small details like font size, and big important details like issues with license generation and account management tools. We listened patiently for over a year and decided now was the right time to introduce an update. Here are some key points about this update,
One of the biggest overhaul has been in the visual/brand side of things. We have ditched our "far-too-corporate" look and adopted a visual style that we feel reflects our personality and ethics.
The product pages and content have been completely overhauled, giving a better experience when looking for information and making it easier to evaluate your options.
There is more information about hedgehog lab now, and more importantly, the much requested Team page and team information.
The license and account management section has been completely re-designed and re-written. It is now even quicker to buy and manage your product licenses from hedgehog lab.
We have a lot more exciting support-related changes and more content coming in the next few months, so make sure you keep an eye on the website.
fixx
This has been months in the making but fixx 1.9 is finally here and it brings with it a wealth of new features and updates which have been requested for a long while. Check out the Release Notes for more info and grab your copy. Here are a few big highlights from 1.9,
You can now delete projects you don't need completely from fixx.
The free user limit has been increased to 3 from 1. You can now have 3 valid users in the system without paying a penny!
fixx can now speak Spanish & German.
You can perform a 1-click migration from Unfuddle.
solomon
The past 2 months have been full steam ahead with solomon development. We have made massive progress with functionality (which included 2 re-writes of the contacts screen) but we are finally happy with the experience and UI. The beta is very close and although I don't want to give away a lot, expect a blog post and a sneak peek into both the solomon web and iPhone app soon.
