FIGURE C

BugMe! is easy to use and very focused.

Listen to it
Often, good software ideas surround us, especially if you are a software developer having a product in the market. If the product is rather popular, then you should have a large amount of feedback on it. It's the best source of fresh ideas I've ever seen.

The developers must pay maximum attention to what users tell them. When they are using software they always get thoughts how to improve it. Sometimes, these improvements develop into a standalone product.

Here's a live example from my own program. When we released UTS Blood Pressure (at http://www.utracksys.com/plugins/blood_pressure), which allows people to log and chart their blood pressure and pulse with Palm handhelds, we immediately began receiving regular requests from diabetics to add an ability to log their blood glucose level as well.

Surely, we could add such function to the UTS Blood Pressure. But we made what has proven to be a wiser decision. We collected all those requests, analyzed them, and created a new product solely for diabetes patients: UTS Diabetes (at http://utracksys.com/plugins/diabetes), shown in Figure D.

FIGURE D

Users gave us the idea for UTS Diabetes. Listen to people!

It can work in conjunction with blood pressure module and became rather popular among people with Palm OS devices who have to track their diabetes stats.

Developers, it's easy! Learn to listen carefully to what your users tell you about their need. Their ideas are invaluable.

Port it
"Do you have Palm/Pocket PC/Mac OS/PC version of the program?"

We answer several such questions daily. There are lots of good programs that work under certain platforms only, but people who use other operating systems are unable to use it. So, just find the appropriate idea and move it onto the Palm OS platform, for instance.

Porting tools are also popular among users. For instance, Documents To Go (from http://www.dataviz.com/products/documentstogo) by DataViz allows people to work with their Microsoft Office documents on their PDA, as shown in Figure E. Porting Office software in general to PDA platforms was a good idea and, I'm sure, profitable. Developers, look around -- is there something to port?

FIGURE E

Working with Office documents on PDA is a brilliant idea!

Research it
Several times, I was a witness of how a boss told an IT director, "Hey! We have to grow. We need a new product. Research it."

Certainly, the IT director, who has his own view on the company's future, can suggest cloning something to just formally report the task is completed. But if he or she agrees that the company must push something new to the market, then the work will be hard. To create truly new software product from the scratch is an outstanding task. It requires a detailed research of the market to find out what PDA users need, what they like, and what they are ready to pay for.

Once, I took part in such a project as a consultant. Unfortunately, I may not mention the company and the software title due to the certain terms of non-disclosure agreement signed. We spent about three months to find an idea and to polish it.