Case Study: Qix Development

Customer: Zi Corporation
Project Type: Proof of Concept

"The concept was always strong, but the very quick, iterative, delivery from Penrillian made us brave enough to keep trying new ideas." commented Bill Templeton. 

Product Overview

Qix™ is a discovery engine that speeds up access to mobile phone applications, services, and data.  Users access the full range of phone features simply by entering the first few numbers or letters of the desired contact, link, or application.  Unlike other predictive entry systems, Qix searches the full range of content on the device, returning a shortlist in real time.

The Challenge

Zi Corporation wanted to extend the features of predictive text messaging to dialling. While Zi has a strong in-house development team, they were committed to work on other projects. Bill Templeton, Zi’s Business Development Director, engaged Penrillian to develop a prototype.  Penrillian's team focused exclusively on the project, to quickly build a working model and demonstrate whether development was worth continuing.

Objectives

- Prove the 'smart dialler' concept
- Deliver an ‘executable demonstrator’ application for trials by customers

Method Deployed

Penrillian was initially contracted for ten days development, but within just three had delivered a working model.  The prototype worked from a fixed list of numbers, so Bill Templeton asked if it could be modified to use a dynamic list.  This change was quickly completed and another model was delivered back.

The speed with which Penrillian could test ideas and build a demonstrable model spurred Bill Templeton to push the concept further.  He asked if the product could be extended to more than phone numbers; could it include applications and WAP pages as well?  The capability to search the entire contents of the phone in real time becamethe basis of the final product.

"The concept was always strong, but the very quick, iterative, delivery from Penrillian made us brave enough to keep trying new ideas," commented Bill Templeton.  "If we had followed traditional development practices and just provided Penrillian with a tight specification, we would never have got to this point."

Incremental development continued with Penrillian delivering new prototypes every two weeks. Zi would test the product with customers and return with suggestions for new features or fixes. Throughout the project, the top priority for development was always whatever feature or fix would help the product to sell. Within months, the demonstrator had generated sufficient demand from customers to prove Qix a viable product, and development was handed over to Zi's internal team. With complete documentation provided, there wasn't a single follow-up query from Zi's developers to Penrillian.

Results

Penrillian enabled Zi to turn an idea in to a product, with the minimum of commercial risk.  Development continued within Zi, and the Qix product is now in great demand from service providers, because of the easy access it provides to their data services. By adding search terms to the 3,000 pre-loaded in Qix, operators can direct users to their own WAP sites to answer searches such as 'weather', 'news', or 'horoscopes'. With data revenues increasingly important, operators are specifying the Qix interface be included in a wide range of phones.

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