Today we have an interview with Jan Slodicka from Resco who have been producing quality titles for a variety of mobile platforms for quite some time.
1) Jan, tell us a bit about your history in the mobile industry and how you got started with PDA programming?
To be honest, it’s a bit of a strange story. My company worked on various custom projects. As usual, after I grew up couple of young programmers, they went on their own and created Resco working on Windows CE projects. At that time I did not have courage to leave existing projects, but I accepted their invitation a few years later. Since that time I am in marriage with Palm OS. Our group also does Symbian, but we are very careful in that direction.
2) What has been the most successful Resco product and which one are you most proud of?
If we talk in terms of sales, then Resco Viewer outsells other products. But the big time of the viewers seems to be over.
At present it is certainly Resco Explorer and it is a question of roughly one year until it will take the lead in the absolute numbers.
Which product I am most proud of? Certainly the Explorer (you would not believe how positive user opinions do we get), but Resco Neeews does not lag too much. It is a pity that the users only slowly recognize this dimension of the mobile devices.
In general we are trying to build all products as perfect as possible, whereby we allow us the luxury of defining the meaning of this concept. Perhaps not the best marketing strategy, but it leaves us satisfied with the results we have produced.
3) Are you still commited to Palm OS?
Definitely yes, at least for the time being. We even plan a new product. I don’t mean Resco Backup Pro, as this is a variation of an existing product, but something new. I don’t want to reveal the details, but it should appear before Christmas.
4) What is your favourite application by another developer?
I am not a typical user as I spend most of my time thinking about our products and hardly find any time to look at my Treo as an ordinary user. Besides a few basic games I am rather critical to most apps I ever tried. As a developer I see huge reserves in many directions and as a user the apps come to me often somehow simplistic. I’ll pass on naming concrete titles though…
5) What is the best book you have read?
Well, every ordinary man from my generation will tell you that the best book was Winnetou 
Ok, seriously. The term “best book” has definitely a time-limited meaning. I could mention now high literature titles that I read some 20 years ago, which exerted huge impact on me, but since then I gave up this literature. If I take say last 2-3 years, then there is one book that excelled above all – Shantaram by G. D. Roberts. A novel that combines absolutely all I demand from a book. The novel has plenty of friends on the web, so it is not difficult to get more relevant info.
6) Can you tell us what Resco’s future plans are?
Resco consists of four groups – PPC shareware, PPC games, PPC developer tools and our group dealing with Palm OS and partially Symbian. I’ll be talking about our agenda only. It is no secret that Palm OS is in the decline and making living of it is not exactly easy. Despite I may have sounded more optimistic above, we are very careful about the future and prepared to switch the orientation should the worst scenario take place. Strategically it means we want to concentrate more on products, which could be later ported to PPC. Let’s wait first for Palm Linux devices and the user reaction to them.
7) What PDA / smartphone do you use and why?
Out of several PDA’s I have on my desk I consider the Treo 650 as my main device. For me, the decisive factor was “two devices in one”. But there were more features such as the keyboard, one-handedness etc. that I found as a good trade-off for larger display (well, I miss it) and DIA (I don’t care). While my T650 is aging, I am kind of emotionally bound to it and did not think yet of an upgrade.
Where will the PDA industry go in the next 2 years?
Well, if I knew, I would selling it for big money… Instead, I can offer just a combination of my feelings and wishes.
I deeply believe that the idea of mobile computing has sound basics and the best years are still ahead of us – however, only for the smartphones.
Fast Internet will become a standard.
Web services will play much more important role.
Treo will be still here – thinner, lighter and more “sexy”. And more reliable, of course.
9) What feature would you like to see incorporated in future PDAs?
Better network connectivity.
Better web browser
Improved Battery life.
Safer OS (Palm specific)
10) Anything you would like to add?
Thanks for the chance you gave me with this interview. And all the best to PDA247. Sites like yours are tremendously important for all PDA fans.
