Case Study: Handmark Pocket Express for Symbian OS

Project Type: Complex Porting
Customer: Handmark
Platfom: Port from Windows Mobile to Series 60, Symbian OS

Product Overview

Handmark Pocket Express is a personalised information portal for mobile devices, offering consumers easy access to content on mobile handsets.  This includes multiple channels such as news, weather, movie reviews, sports updates and flight information.  The product has won multiple awards and is installed as standard on devices from a variety of handset manufacturers and service providers.

"We knew what we wanted but didn't have all the details figured out.  Penrillian is very adept at iterative development; we knew we could work together to build this product." Tim Massey, VP Handmark 

The Challenge

Pocket Express has proven success on BlackBerry, Palm OS and Windows Mobile devices.  A MIDP Java version was available for other handsets
but there remained customer demand for a version that ran natively on the Symbian OS  for Nokia Series 60 devices.
Handmark had limited development resources in house with the capability to develop for the Symbian OS platform.  When the decision was
made to more aggressively target Europe where Symbian OS-based handsets dominate the Smartphone market, Handmark turned to Penrillian.

Objectives

 - Create a Symbian OS client for Nokia Series 60 devices that replicated the look and feel of Pocket Express on the
   existing platforms
 - Develop a UI that can easily be localised with multiple languages
 - Enable integration of multiple content types and sources

Method Deployed

Handmark and Penrillian had worked together previously on porting Handmark Oxford Spanish Dictionary in 2005.  Following the success of that project, Handmark's vice president product development, Tim Massey, says Penrillian was the partner of choice for this development.  "We knew what we wanted but didn't have all the details figured out.  Penrillian is very adept at iterative development; we knew we could work together to build this product."

Following an initial meeting, Penrillian was asked to demonstrate that it could translate the look and feel of the Windows Mobile application into a true native Symbian OS implementation.  With this quickly proven, Penrillian began to port the channel by  channel, so that Handmark  always had a working version.  Each channel was constantly  tested using Penrillian's Symbian  OS unit test framework.

During the project, Handmark  decided to update key features of the UI, which did not prove to be a problem as Penrillian work using a process called agile,  which allows for flexibility and changes. In response, we quickly came up with a solution,  which was to provide Handmark
with a set of controls that replaced standard Symbian components – hence changing the look and feel of the UI.

Results

Part of the project was to introduce Handmark developers to the project, so that they could take any further work in house – with Penrillian providing a supporting role. This was a gradual process and both teams worked together before Penrillian handed over the project in the USA.  Penrillian designed the product so that the user interface can be localised to support different regions with various languages.

Handmark launched Pocket Express for Nokia Series 60 devices at the Mobile World Congress event in February 2008. 

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