Case Study: eZiTap For Symbian OS

Project Type: Executable Demonstrator
Customer: Zi Corporation
Technologies: Symbian OS, Predictive Text

Product Overview

eZiTap is a Front End Processor (FEP) for mobile devices, offering predictive text entry through a virtual keyboard. As the user types, eZiTap predicts what they are typing, accelerating text entry. The more it is used, the smarter eZiTap becomes, learning favourite words and predicting them when next typed - especially useful for names and slang. 

The Challenge

Zi Corporation was struggling to compete in a market dominated by the T9 predictive text system. While it had some success in China, in Europe the major phone vendors remained unconvinced. Part of the problem was demonstrating eZiTap. The software had to be integrated in to a phone's operating system, making it impractical to demonstrate on each customer device. This also made it very hard to give a long-term demonstrator to decision makers. A Flash-based demo had proved unconvincing.

Zi turned to Penrillian to turn eZiTap in to an application for Symbian OS. This would enable Zi to demonstrate the software and most importantly, enable decision makers to trial the software on their own devices.

Objectives

- Develop a downloadable application
- Quickly create a usable product
- Support incremental developments based on user demand

Method Deployed

Zi requested a version of eZiTap for the SonyEricsson (SE) P800. SE was one of Zi's primary sales targets, and at the time, the P800 was its flagship device. Penrillian provided this within 20 days, adding a new window to the P800's keyboard screen that showed eZiTap's ability to predict the word that the user was typing. Immediately Zi could begin to show its capabilities to SE's decision makers.

The trial version spread from user to user within SE, with installs tracked via a registration scheme based on IMEI numbers. As more people installed the trial version, Zi collected feedback on features and functions and fed this back to Penrillian. Penrillian added these features week by week, before releasing them back to Zi and the SE engineers. Copy and paste, special keyboards, and numeric entry were added.

The software continued to develop and eventually Zi made the decision to turn it in to a standalone product. Penrillian added a 'timebomb' trial period and took the software through commercial testing.

Results

Penrillian's incremental delivery approach provided Zi with a usable product in the fastest possible time and at the minimum cost. Features were added only when it was commercially expedient to do so. The project was low-risk for Zi Corporation: because of the rapid delivery and small initial investment, it only had to be widely publicised once it was a proven success.

The commercial version of eZiTap was made available through Handango, and won 'Best Productivity Application' in 2004 and 'Best Application for Life' in 2005 in the Handango Champion Awards.

At SonyEricsson, the software soon became a standard addition to people's devices. Zi is now a major supplier of text input systems for Sony Ericsson.

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