If you are reading this you should know that Nokia opened their own App Store called OVI and is accepting developers to publish their applications. In this article we address typical situation when a customer has an idea of the Nokia applications and hires us as a development vendor. The customer will need to open a few accounts in order to sign and publish the application developed. Here is the instruction:

1. Open the developer account at OVI and get it approved. Enter banking information as well as other corporate info as prompted. Only companies will be accepted! In user management area create a ‘developer’ login and pass to developer.

2. Apply for TC TrustCenter Publisher ID here: (cost $200).

3. Once the publisher ID is obtained you need to get certificate and the key out of it. Follow the instructions or ask the developers for help. We know that this procedure is hard for the first-time.

4. Register with SymbianSigned and purchase 1 Express Signed certificate by logging into the account there. Pass the account information to developer. This web site is used for signing applications by Symbian. Please note that Express Signed is the cheapest signing option, the most appropriate way is Certified Signed where a 3rd party test house is performing the testing of the applications for the fee ranging $350-550. Express Signed certificate is generated on the fly with Symbian checking selected applications on a later date. Should Express Signed certificate be revoked the company should sign the 2 following applications using Certified Signed option. *Disclaimer: as a developers we recommend the client to use Certified Signed option and get the app fully tested by a test house selected by Nokia (there are hundreds of supported devices with a variety of software and options). Should you want to save on those fees, we can use Express Signing option but do not guarantee 100% compliance with all the Nokia tests and thus Express Signing certificate note being revoked.

Useful resources:

- Symbian signing guide
- Online Flash Packager for creating .sis out of .swf file and signing it (for Flash Lite apps only)
- Symbian guide on testing applications
- Test the app on a remote Nokia phones
- Sample archive for submission for Symbian Signed
- Advanced Nokia phones feature comparison matrix
- Talk to other developers on Nokia forum

Should you have questions regarding the getting started or signing of the application – feel free to ask in comments.

Tags: ovi developers, ovi development, ovi publishers, publishing on ovi
Posted in mobile development, outsourcing | 1 Comment »

We are getting questions about types of content restricted for publishing at Nokia Ovi Store. The list compiled by Nokia is below:

Here are some examples of prohibited content:

* Content that is neither free or using Nokia’s billing platform
* Copyrighted material you are not authorized to use
* Pornography, nudity, or sexually explicit material
* Promotes graphic or gratuitous violence
* Ethnic propaganda or other offensive material which attacks or demeans a group or an individual
* Disparaging governments or politicians
* Media showing minors in an exploitative or abusive light
* Displays cruelty to animals
* Shows distressing content
* Encourages illegal, dangerous or harmful activities
* Files that contain viruses or harmful code
* Linking to websites that contain illegal or inappropriate material

Tags: nokia ovi development, nokia ovi store
Posted in mobile development, outsourcing | No Comments »

This guest post is written by Tobias Batton, the CEO of Resistor Productions located in San Francisco, California, the publisher of Disciple MMORPG. Tobias and his company has been working with MoveYourWeb and Apalon for several years and built a number of successful projects. In this series of guest posts however Tobias addresses the fun aspect of building the big relationship with offshore vendor.

Last week we left off with the CTO of Resistor being taken into custody by some friends acting like the ‘KGB agents’.

As the week progressed we knew that we had to build relationships not just with the executive team of our development partners, but with their employees as well. These are the people doing the majority of the work, and it’s important to be friendly with them as well, since they are often working long nights make sure that software is out on time.

After talking with the team for a few days, we decided to show them what and American keg party is like. In Belarus they are no strangers to heavy drinking, but they had never heard of a Keg Stand. We invited the entire company to come.

We ordered a Keg of micro brewed beer from the brewery across the street and decided to have the party right there in the office after working hours.

Once the beer arrived, the team began drinking immediately. It wasn’t long before the drinking competitions started. To our surprise, the CTO, Marc was beating everyone! This was unexpected since there were some big guys trying to slam beers with Marc, but in a way this was his redemption after the fake abduction he endured earlier in the week.

The development had one last shot at redemption to see if they could find someone to beat Marc in the drinking contest. They convinced the PM, Vitaliy, to challenge Marc. This is a pretty big deal because Vitaliy has a reputation for never drinking, he hates it. But with the pride of his company on the line, Vitaliy did not back away from challenging Marc. Here is the video of what happened:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRDqtz6NLHc&feature=channel_page

So who won? Leave your comments on this blog post.

So obviously we had quite a rich experience in our trip overseas to meet the development partners, but there was a purpose for all of this.

Relationships are key for productivity and general shared excitement around any development project. If someone does not know who they are working for, its hard to care about the end product.

We achieved our goal, we built working relationships and created memories with people from another country that made the development process for Disciple much easier and increased the communication dramatically.

Tags: game development, mmo development, mmorpg development, offshore outsourcing
Posted in game development, outsourcing | No Comments »

This guest post is written by Tobias Batton, the CEO of Resistor Productions located in San Francisco, California, the publisher of Disciple MMORPG. Tobias and his company has been working with MoveYourWeb and Apalon for several years and built a number of successful projects. In this series of guest posts however Tobias addresses the fun aspect of building the big relationship with offshore vendor.

Last week we left off with getting beaten with branches in a 150 degree sauna in Belarus by our development team.

The next story of our adventures in team building center around the Resistor Productions CTO named Marc. Marc is a good friend with the CEO of Resistor, Tobias, and Tobias knew that Marc had never been overseas. With the anxiety of Marc’s first time overseas, along with the weird feeling of visiting a former soviet state, Tobias went to great lengths to take advantage of Marc’s awkward feelings.

Ahead of the trip Tobias called the owners of Apalon and planned a prank that is so epic in proportion that it rivals anything you have ever seen on the show “Punk’d”.

On the second night in Belarus, Tobias left early to go to dinner with some of the employees of the development firm. Marc was left alone with one of the owners late at night in the offices. It was then that a ‘KGB agent’ showed up, accompanied by an armed guard with an AK-47.

They approached Marc and asked him for his passport. They told him he was wanted for questioning under suspicion of espionage. Marc was completely freaked out. The agents barely spoke English, one had an AK-47 and they kept his passport. They were yelling at him in Russian and trying to get him to sign a confession that was written in Russian, so Marc had no idea what it said!.

When Marc refused to sign the confession, they handcuffed him and put a black bag over his head. They lead him outside and threw him in the backseat of an SUV. They drove around for about an hour and yelled at him to shut up anytime he asked any questions.

Marc was silent and shaking.

After about an hour of driving around, they pulled up to a security gate and showed their badges. The guard let them through. All Marc could think is that he wanted to see his wife, and that he thought he was going to be tortured in some crazy interrogation.

As the car made its way down into a parking lot, there were a group of men yelling outside the car. They parked the car and took the bag off of Marc’s head, and standing in front of him was Tobias, half drunk, with an evil smile on his face.

It’s probably not appropriate to write what Marc said to him in this blog, but there was a very colorful exchange. After Marc released some tension, he shared the laugh with Tobias and the developers.

Marc said he completely believed it was real, and wondered if he would die. It was the most epic prank he ever experienced and will remember it to the end of his days.

Tobias Batton,
CEO Resistor Productions LLC

Tags: game development, mmo development, offshore outsourcing
Posted in game development, outsourcing | No Comments »

This guest post is written by Tobias Batton, the CEO of Resistor Productions located in San Francisco, California, the publisher of Disciple MMORPG. Tobias and his company has been working with MoveYourWeb and Apalon for several years and built a number of successful projects. In this series of guest posts however Tobias addresses the fun aspect of building the big relationship with offshore vendor.

As you know Disciple is a browser based – no client download game that is heavily focused on PvP, level progression and rankings. The actual Production time for this game was about 20 months, from concept to release. This is part one of a series of posts about the different aspects of making a browser game. I thought it would be fun to start with some of the more entertaining aspects of game development.

When we started the design process, the majority of what we were doing was fleshing out the actual game concept on paper. This was everything from gameplay, to story and lore, to art style, and even basic combat formulas.

As our concept became defined, we needed to choose developers to implement our ideas from paper to code. There was a lot of discussion on whether or not we would hire our own developers or hire a professional 3rd party developer. Rather than train our own development team, we thought it would make sense to hire a 3rd party with experience and give them direction, rather than creating our own crew from the ground up.

After a little looking around, we discovered a company called Apalon based in Europe. They were both affordable and qualified to handle our project, and had done work for several large companies in the past such as Fisher Price. We knew from the start that there would be a few issues managing a project in Europe, one of which would be team building and general excitement and moral.

We had to keep the development team excited about the project, and we had to make them feel like we were all part of the same team, even if we were an ocean apart. So during the process of development, the management of Resistor took several trips overseas to manage the development and build relationships.

Apalon is based in a country called “Belarus” which is part of the former USSR and one country east of Poland. These countries have become a hotbed for technology, even Google has set up a huge development office in this area.

On our first trip there we did not really know what to expect, but upon arrival the similarities to the USA are truly uncanny. On nearly every corner of the downtown area you see McDonalds and TGI Fridays, as well as other familiar sites.

As soon as we arrived in the office, we were hard at work, but we also knew we had to find ways to become fast friends with our new partners, so that they could feel as though they were a part of our team, and our friends. I asked them to give us a taste of traditional Belarussian culture.

The first night they took me to a Belarussian Sauna. Its very hot. Like 30 seconds now get me the hell out of here right now hot! I didn’t really know what to expect, but it was quite an experience.

I have been in a Sauna in the USA maybe once or twice in my life. The Russian Sauna is much hotter. After 30 seconds the only thing you are thinking is that you want to get the hell out before you pass out from the heat. You touch your hair and it feels like its about to light on fire. The gentlemen I was there with were pouring beer on the coals and laughing.

Peter, the VP of their company, wanted to leave too, but we were trying to be tough and hang in there. Next thing I know, one of the guys walks in with some tree branches and points for me to lay down. My response was:

“what the hell???”

Matvey, the Operations Manager explains that he will hit the branches against my back, and this is tradition in Belarus. All I could think was that I wanted to get our of there right away. Matvey told me I was a Sauna virgin and they were going to “pop my cherry”. Not wanting to look like a wimp, I reluctantly agreed.

Getting hit with the branches didn’t hurt . . . . When i tried to get up, they pushed me back down. It was similar to a college hazing. After 2 minutes or so, I thought I would die, so I insisted on leaving and they let me go. In all it was a great experience, everyone got their turns with the hot room, I was able to take joy in watching them suffer too.

This was just the first night. In my next post we will cover a staged arrest of our CTO by the “KGB” as well as drinking contests and more! Here is a preview video for what we will cover in the next post:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRDqtz6NLHc

Tobias Batton,
CEO Resistor Productions LLC

Tags: game development, offshore development company, offshore outsourcing
Posted in game development, outsourcing | No Comments »

We have 5-8 apps in production simultaneously at the same time now which means that we deliver multiple applications in a month. Now what we experienced during the delivery is that several of our customers didn’t have iPhone developer accounts needed to publish the app or actually they started applying for it but it was not not yet ready. That puts the success of any application at risk, because the number of apps on AppStore is skyrocketing and chances high that competitor will release the same app tomorrow. So get iPhone developer account early if you still don’t have it!

The registration process consists of multiple steps and takes anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months of time. If you are in USA and quick in furnishing Apple with the data required you might get it during 2-3 weeks time. Here is the brief guideline on what to expect from the registration process:

1. Apply for iPhone Developer program
2. Fax business documents that Apple requests after review of initial application (Apple will email the reqs)
3. Agree to iPhone Developer Program License Agreement (Apple will email the link)
4. Pay the membership fee. If you are not in the list of supported countries email to devenroll@apple.com and ask to provide IDP Billing Form for manual CC processing
5. Receive the account activation code from Apple and apply it
6. Login into iTunes Connect and fill in ‘Free Apps’ Contract, ‘Paid Apps’ Contract, Wire Details for payment, Japanese sales agreement and ‘Available on AppStore’ artwork license agreement as well as W8-BEN form for foreign developers .
7. Mail ‘Paid Apps’ contract, ‘artwork license’ agreement, ‘Japanese sales’ agreement to Apple and wait till they review those and fully activate your account.

Frequently Asked Questions:

- How can I speed up the process?
Reply: If at a certain point you don’t hear from apple for more then a week – start calling them +14089744897 or emailing to devenroll@apple.com. They are overwhelmed with the applications so couple of reminders will not harm

- Shall I receive EIN if I’m a foreign developer?
Reply: Up to you. We’ve been talking to Apple billing department numerous times and they confirmed that providing 000000000 (9 zeros) instead of EIN/TIN is an allowable option. They report AppStore payments to be commission as opposed to royalty so there is no withholding of tax or reporting on form 1042 at year end. There is a big confusion caused by the list of countries that have double treaty but this is valid for iTunes and not AppStore since AppStore sales are put in a different fashion. So you just pay taxes at your country not USA.

Some foreign developers prefer to obtain EIN/TIN (afterall it’s a 10 minute call to IRS 1-(215) 516-6999. Make sure you filled SS-4 to dictate it to a representative).

- Can I pay by wire transfer for iPhone Developer admission fee?
Reply: Not any more

- Are the payments from sales coming in multiple currencies?
Reply: Yes. Make sure that your bank account is capable of receiving multiple currencies and converting those.

- I’m an indie developer and don’t have fax to send documents to Apple. Any online solutions?
Reply: PamFax on Skype – reliable and dirt cheap

- How do I pay for iPhone Developer Program if my country is not in the list?
Email to devenroll@apple.com (make sure you include identification code) and request iDP BILLING: Credit Card Processing Form. You will need to feel it with CC details and fax over to Apple

- If I have further questions on getting registered – will you assist me?
Reply: If you are our customer – email to your Project Manager ASAP! If you are a random visitor to the web site – try posting your question in comments to this blog entry.

Posted in outsourcing | 1 Comment »

When April Fools’ Day falls on a working day – get ready to become a victim of somebody’s pranks!

We also love innocent jokes, for example….
Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in corporate events, outsourcing | No Comments »

Everyone is excited about Iphone platform these days. With about 15 MLN devices sold so far it makes a huge new audience to target. A great deal of our customers and partners is coming up with the ideas for the Iphone Applications. I love talking to people about their ideas – being a business development person in nature it makes a good part of my day. All the Iphone-related requests can be divided into three categories according to my experience:

- Make another kick-ass application that will hit TOP10 AppStore. With stories like that popping up the internet every day there is a bunch of folks out there that think they have another great idea for the app. And I’m sure some of those will hit the jackpot!

- Port existing application or web service to the Iphone Platform. This is very wise move typically! Literally there is a wholly new audience waiting for the service which you provide on the web and not yet on Iphone. Be the first and gain competitive advantage over competitors. Now I heard the stories from CEO’s telling that they not only managed to increase the audience for the main service they provide but to earn some extra buck from the Iphone App sales.

- Update the web sites so they are displayed correctly on the Iphones. That is the simplest but smart move as well. With adoption of Iphones people started using Internet more heavily on mobile devices. So yes, it’s time to update your web site if you still didn’t do so.

Now the funniest thing about all Iphone-development buzz is that experienced app developers charge up to $150-250 per hour and some are booked up for the coming months. There are lots of talks about Interactive Agencies rejecting <$30k Iphone development projects because of the gap between the demand and available experienced developers on the market. MoveYourWeb is here to help as always! We have enough talent pool onsite and keep charging at a fraction of the rates mentioned above. Even after one of our apps was featured by Apple team.

Tags: iphone, iphone application development, iphones
Posted in iphone development, outsourcing, web development | No Comments »

The the post of October I was suggesting that Belarus is one of the best choices for outsourcing destination in those hard times. While it’s storming the exchange rates of many customers chances are high that local salaries of people will be eroded and the purchasing power will become less. Not the case for outsourcing industry in Belarus. Below is the extract from our post last year:

Worth case scenario for crisis is that devaluation of the belorussian ruble will occur which will be a hit for the country but not the outsourcing industry. In fact it will win in this case (consider employees being able to purchase more for the same salary).

On 2nd of January, 2009 Belarus’ central bank sharply devalued the belarusian ruble, allowing the currency to plunge 20 percent. It’s not my intention to cover the reasons and effects of this change on the economy and citizens. What’s I’m going to highlight instead is that the developers and other tech folks in Belarus started earning higher salaries overnight (of course the prices for commodities will be increased eventually). That is the case for all companies who are export oriented – the compensation of employees increased and so the satisfaction. Happy New Year to everyone!

Tags: belarus currency, currency, outsourcing
Posted in outsourcing | No Comments »

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