AndroidGuys

Here’s a spotlight we’re excited to bring to you as we’d already covered them in previous posts and podcasts. Sadko Mobile is the company behind CallFreq, but they’re also working on a few other applications such as DroidStor and CamLine. We were contacted by Yuri Ammosov and able to pick his brain for a few questions. If you have any questions for him and Sadko Mobile, please feel free to ask in the comments section below. You can also visit their website by clicking here.

Give our readers a quick Sadko Mobile history lesson

Sadko Mobile is the first startup focused exclusively on Android platform. It was founded by Yuri Ammosov, a serial entrepreneur who quit his senior job in Russian Government where he led the project of creating a sovereign fund of venture funds. We began work immediately after the first SDK was released on November 16, 2007. The company has 4
full-time employees and a varying number of subcontractors. We are a US company, our R&D facilities are based in Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod (both cities are in Russia).

That’s great! Can you provide some info about your application?

Sadko Mobile already completed not a single application but four applications, and two are already released. CallFreq, a intelligent contact manager, was the first ever Android-specific application (released in December 2007). It was followed by CamLine, an advanced camera that can automatically upload videos and photos to web services
like YouTube and Picasa. We are currently working on DroidStor, an application manager and marketplace, and search software (project name AskDroid).

See more at: http://sadko.mobi/

What kind of impact are you expecting at Sadko Mobile?

We at Sadko Mobile only do things that are taking the communicator user experience way beyond the current level. We want you to be able to use Android communicator in ways you could never do before, and not possible under any other platform. Sounds ambitious and lofty but this is what we are in business for.

How do you plan to distribute your applications?

Sadko Mobile is probably the first company that can answer this question rather than being asked. DroidStor takes care exactly of this - creating a channel for developers to sell their wares. DroidStor lets the Android user to search online software catalogs (any number of them at once), download and install applications, pay for them or subscribe to them, and backups the whole phone, both data, programs, settings and content.

Sadko Mobile partners with hardware manufacturers so that on many devices DroidStor might come pre-installed. The need to sell via carriers might soon be over for good - just as we no longer get web services only from the ISPs like AOL but from just about anyone in the world.

See more at http://sadko.mobi/droidstor/index.html

Is the Android Developers Challenge the reason you got started with Sadko Mobile?

Sadko Mobile is not particularly cash strapped so this was not the first reason to play. Challenge is a great promotional and verification opportunity, and is worth participating even if no prize were at stake. However, the prize amount makes it clear that Google is going to invest a lot in supporting the market for new platform, which is a must for
success.

What kind of challenges did you encounter as you worked on your applications? How much time goes into a program?

Each program took us about 6 weeks from blueprint to release. However, in many cases we had to make shortcuts to get over the limited Android SDK functionality. Android SDK is getting better with every release, however it still remains far from what we expect to have in the finished product. It is not a cause for alarm as constant upgrading is a common practice, and we were prepared for it.

How would Android compare to any other platforms you’ve worked with?

Android allows user to do more than any other platform (save maybe for LiMo and OpenMoko). We did work with many other platfroms such as JavaME, Symbian, Windows Mobile and iPhone, and none of them allows developer as much as Android. Another advantage of Android is speed of development. Recreating the same titles we released on other platforms would take far larger effort which for business like Sadko Mobile means more people, extended management and larger budgets. This said, Android
SDK and the underlying system is still far from being perfect, and we expect that further releases will let us do more - like they already did.
What else is coming down the road? Give us a hint at things to come.

Sadko Mobile long-term strategy is not end-user software; we plan to produce middleware that will be used by other Android developers. Our first step in this direction is DroidStor which is a service as much as it is software: it manages software delivery to device and digital rights. We plan to take this further in other areas - stay tuned for
announcements.