Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Chris Ruff, CEO of UIEvolution (Part 2)

SM: So you’re saying that instead of 100% content transformation solution, middleware layer in between, your approach is that 80% has to be automated and 20% custom and that you have solutions for both the 80% automated and the 20% custom?

CR: Yes. We provide the design and the services for doing the customization. And we bundle it together because our customers want to buy solutions. That’s how we differentiate. We don’t believe in 100% [automation] for every transfer model.

SM: What is the landscape like? Are there lots of players doing these 100% automation solutions?

CR: Not all that many. The biggest competition in mobile right now is either development tools that make it easier to create something more like packaged HTML 5 that would go across all the devices, or we’re seeing a lot of vertical developers. So, customers would go to one development shop for an iPhone app, then go to another for Android and go to another for Windows. We’re seeing a lot of that as opposed to a decent amount of companies building these middleware systems.

SM: And you work across all the devices?

CR: Yes. The business for us is we’re going to push our customers toward all of these new connected platforms, and we give them technology and software solutions that make it less painful and easier to get there. We don’t take away all of the pain. The difference for us is we still want to offer a highly branded, highly customized application experience for our customers.

SM: Got it. So, I’m going to double click down on a few different points here. Number one is you mentioned HTML 5. What are the capabilities of HTML 5 when it comes to these cross-device interfaces?

CR: Well, it’s improving and coming a long way, but there still are limitations in that the browsers across all of the devices are not the same. You still have to work in a world of some portability problems. The other thing is that if you want to do more device-led features and device-led integration not all the APIs are there either for building up a rich, almost native application on the device. It will work for a category of applications. In our world, we offer our customers full solutions. We’re doing an awful lot right now with developing HTML 5 websites for mobile and also packaged versions that can be downloaded out of an Android cell phone for folks who want that extra half discovery part of it. We’re not picking yet. Over time, HTML 5 will continue to evolve and help improve some of this fragmentation, but it will still only be for certain types of applications. I don’t believe we’re going to see any time soon game developers moving aggressively to HTML 5. They’re going to stay native.

SM: OK. In your solutions, does the work that you do transform a website into a mobile-compatible website, or are you also doing work to convert it into a mobile app?

CR: I don’t love the word convert … because I want to be a little more specific. Our backend platforms help deliver those applications by allowing our customers to use the same content and services on their websites. But we’re mostly taking the applications and content and building the custom layer on top of them. So, it’s not a conversion step. That’s what we strive for and then have them work across the largest number of devices that we can offer.

SM: And is the end result an app or a mobile-compatible website?

CR: Both. Either. Our customers pick. We have some customers [for whom] we are just doing mobile-compatible website work with. And then we have others that have decided the app is the best way for them to communicate what they want. We don’t limit that choice for our customers. As we move into new platforms like TVs and auto, we have to be a taker of those platforms anyway because there isn’t any standardization yet … very much like the mobile phone was in the 2000s.

SM: So, you said you can do 80% with technology and 20% needs to be done in custom services, but it seems like it needs to be a lot more custom based what you’ve just described. Help me bridge the gap in my understanding of what can be done. With that 80% in technology, what exactly can be done? Can you get into some specifics?

CR: Yes, that’s a fair comment. I don’t know that in every application we deliver that we hit that goal. There are applications we’ve done where maybe technology [accounts] for 40% of the value. That is a true statement. It depends on the application. If you simplify the application down to something, whether it’s an application or a website that is pretty much like a website, then you can reach that goal much more easily. If you’re building in custom application features that are almost game like, then yes, it’s harder to hit that barrier, hit that absolute that I’m talking about.

This segment is part 2 in the series : Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Chris Ruff, CEO of UIEvolution
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