Dan Porter is the President of InnoVal Systems Solutions, makers one of the first Internet e-mail clients to be embraced by the OS/2 masses. Like many other medium sized OS/2 ISVs InnoVal concentrates all development efforts on OS/2 products. As a result they have been able to jump into the end user market almost overnight with the Post Road Mailer.

With the recent release of the latest version plus a few other interesting products in the works, we thought you might like to hear Dan Porter's take on the industry.

e-Zine!: How long has InnoVal been in business?

DP: As a company, we've been in business now going on three years.

e-Zine!: Have you been doing OS/2 stuff since the beginning, or. . .

DP: Yeah, exactly.

e-Zine!: So you were founded specifically to write OS/2 software?

DP: That's correct.

e-Zine!: What made you get into the OS/2 market?

DP: I think we had a lot of confidence in the product. We had some experience with it. We felt it was a good niche to get into. We felt that we had some pretty good ideas of applications that we wanted to undertake and we've been pleased ever since we got into it.

e-Zine!: So three years ago. Was version 2.1 [of OS/2] out by then?

DP: [Version] 2.10 was out with a fixpack.

e-Zine!: What was your first product? Not Post Road Mailer.

DP: No, actually what we did is a lot of custom programming for corporations with primary focus on DB2/2 running under OS/2.

e-Zine!: When did you start to hit the end user market?

DP: Well, what we did is kind of interesting. We had some VM mainframe experience, and we saw a real hole in the VM PROFS arena in the e-mail on the host and we knew there was a need for a good OS/2 client, so we started developing that, feeling, at the time, that we were really going to go after corporate sales.

e-Zine!: So what happened that made you choose to transform it into something that was also suitable for an end user?

DP: Well, one of the things that we did is, we decided as we were designing this that we wanted to see what innovations and technology existed in the e-mail arena in the Internet and some other e-mail disciplines and when we started looking at what was available in OS/2 we discovered a glaring hole. So we retooled our efforts very quickly to fill that hole.

e-Zine!: Ok. When did Post Road Mailer first come out--the Internet version?

DP: It came out in May of this year.

e-Zine!: So that was just shortly after PMMail from Robert Novitskey came out?

DP: About 30 days, yeah.

e-Zine!: Obviously then, you were in development of the Internet version of Post Road Mail when PMMail came out. Did you take it seriously? Did you discount it because it was coming from a student/shareware type of area or were you somewhat concerned when somebody released one about a month before you were about to?

DP: Well, I would say we were disappointed to see it released a month before us, but we communicated with Bob Novitskey and we basically told him, "Look, this is a big market place and we've looked at your product, we like what we see but we want you to know that our product is coming out too," and as a matter of fact, we traded copies. It was kind of interesting because he sent back a letter to me and said he was delighted to see there are nice people in this computer arena on the Internet. So we maintained a good, healthy competition.

e-Zine!: Now that Nick Knight's MR/2 ICE is out and Bob is scheduled to release an improved version of PMMail, do you think the competition is catching up with the features in Post Road Mailer?

DP: I think that with the beta that we released last night [December 19th] we've taken a giant step forward.

e-Zine!: So you think that you are going to maintain the lead that you seem to have had so far.

DP: Well, we're certainly geared to maintain technical and functional leadership. But that really isn't a competitive situation completely. I mean we had a commitment to continually make this product better. I want to make sure that when new products show up on the horizon, we're still way ahead.

e-Zine!: OK, what about IBM's rumoured inclusion of cc:Mail in the next version of OS/2 to replace UltiMail [Lite]--does that affect your long term strategy at all, and do you think it will hurt the 3rd party mail client market?

DP: There's no question that when you bundle something with an operating system you affect 3rd party products. That happened to other ISV's as well when IBM enhanced OS/2.

I'm not faulting IBM for that. It's good that they're, in a sense, listening to their constituents out there, but I don't really feel terribly concerned about it because we believe we'll continue to evolve this product. With this new release, which has multiple MIME attachments, ISO Latin 1 and other features, and some of our future plans, I'm not really concerned.

e-Zine!: You don't call it [Post Road Mailer] shareware.

DP: No it is not shareware.

e-Zine!: But you did have a demo version on the Internet and I'm assuming you're going to maintain that policy.

DP: Yes.

e-Zine!: So, why don't you call it shareware then? Is there a functional difference or is it just a marketing term?

DP: Well, I think that it's a marketing term. I think it also carries certain connotations. We sell this product as a commercial product through resellers. Many resellers will not carry shareware, not because there is anything wrong with shareware or that they're against shareware, it's just that they have decided to market only ISV products.

I would say putting up a demo does not make it shareware. There are a lot of demos out there these days on Hobbes and on CD ROM's.

e-Zine!: Is the demo fully functional?

DP: Completely functional.

e-Zine!: Does it expire after a certain time?

DP: Thirty days.

e-Zine!: Alright. Some of your critics say that combination products--when you start adding a lot of features that aren't necessary to the core of the product, like the news as mail and other things that you've released now in Post Road--are never as good as stand-alone units. How do you respond to that?

DP: Some people will always say that and just as large a constituency will say, "We need this feature, we need that feature." What you try to do as you design products, is you try to hear everybody and strike a balance. One of the things that we did was a very comprehensive customer survey and we looked at everything that everybody said. Clearly people were asking for certain features.

e-Zine!: So the directions you are going with Post Road Mailer, then, are largely, would you say, due to the input of the end users?

DP: One hundred percent. We have not added a feature that hasn't been extensively asked for.

e-Zine!: Let me ask you this. Do you see yourself going in the direction of an OS/2 equivalent of, say Microsoft Exchange, like a universal mailbox? Is that where you see this product ending up? Kind of a do-all communications program?

DP: Not completely, no. Again I emphasize that we listen to what our customers tell us they want and there are some things in so-called universal packages that very few people use.

e-Zine!: So those types of things that there is very little demand for you just won't bother to pursue?

DP: Not unless it's worthwhile to us and our customers. One thing I will not do is create features just for technology's sake.

e-Zine!: I'm not sure if that's good or bad.

DP: Well, technology, in and of itself is great, as long as it provides usefulness.

e-Zine!: True but there are a lot of products that don't start out being intended for what they end up being used for.

DP: Oh, I understand that.

e-Zine!: But you don't see InnoVal as a company that's responsibility is the pure innovation of technology?

DP: We are innovative in the area of application. If we see the usefulness of a technology and that it will benefit our customers' use of the product, we'll definitely embrace it.

e-Zine!: So, is that what happened with Surf'nRexx? You saw something that could benefit your customers and jumped into it?

DP: Exactly. A lot people came out of a unix world where there were a lot of utilities for the Internet. Those utilities did not exist as plentifully in the OS/2 arena. So what this was, was a way to spark some development of utilities.

And in that respect, it's been very successful. We have quite a few federal government agencies that are using Surf'nRexx very effectively to confirm web site URLs and start integrating more and more federal web sites, and their using Surf'nRexx to do it.

e-Zine!: But it's not your typical end user product.

DP: It's not your typical end user product.

e-Zine!: You say, "in that sense, it's done quite well." How well have Surf'nRexx and the Post Road Mailer done?

DP: Well first of all, I'll say that the Post Road Mailer sales have been phenomenal.

e-Zine!: Would you care to quantify that?

DP: No I won't.

e-Zine! (laughing): OK.

DP: Our volumes are confidential--we don't want to get into a numbers game. My feeling right now is, and I can't substantiate it, that we are the market leader in sales.

Surf'nRexx is a much smaller market. We tend to sell Surf'nRexx more into corporate IS shops.

e-Zine!: Tell me what happened with the original name for Surf'nRexx's.

DP: It was basically a legal problem.

e-Zine!: Who was the other company that was claiming prior use of. . .

DP: It was Fulcrum Technologies in Canada and I'll just say that there were concurrent claims and our product was not saturated enough in the market that we wanted to make an issue of it.

e-Zine!: So you just decided to change the name because it was still so early in the game.

DP: It was early in the game. I think one of the things that I find very, very exciting, particularly in this OS/2 arena, is that there is a lot of ISV cooperation. And besides, we decided we liked the name Surf'nRexx. And so do our customers.

e-Zine!: I'm assuming that it hasn't done anything noticeable to your sales.

DP: Not at all.

e-Zine!: What about the news reader. It's going in to beta next week?

DP: Well, it was going to go into beta next week but two things have happened. One, we've been inundated with snow and some people have not been able to come to work and I've decided I do not want to mess up people's holiday week within our company. So we're going to put it up in the first week of January.

e-Zine!: What will it do to the news reader market? I can only think of one other PM based news reader except the one that comes with OS/2. What do you think it's going to mean, having another legitimate contender?

DP: I think it will increase the awareness of this type of product. I think that there is a very large market for news readers and it's a growing market, even though news has been around for quite a while on the Internet.

We've got some very, very innovative designs built into this thing. Just to give you an example, people have been debating constantly how the subjects or the items, if you will, should be presented to the viewer--should they be organized by subject, should they be organized chronologically, should they be organized on a reference thread concept, should they be presented by the author or poster of an article?--and we listened to the debate for a while and decided we'll let you take any choice you want.

e-Zine!: So it's going to be very configurable?

DP: Very configurable to the point where if I'm looking at it chronologically and I want to switch it to threaded basis, I can do so and it takes approximately 2 seconds for it to reorganize all the articles for you.

e-Zine!: And presumably it will have all the normal bells and whistles? It will be multithreaded and. . .

DP: Absolutely so. 32 bit, multithreaded. . . And as a matter of fact, we get some significant performance out of doing just that.

e-Zine!: Is there built-in uudecoding?

DP: Yes.

e-Zine!: Let me ask you this then: when I'm uudecoding a file, can I then go on to load other articles while I'm decoding?

DP: You sure can but you will find that we decode most uuencoded files in one to two seconds so it's not a big issue.

I addition to uuencode we also support MIME attachments which are starting to occur more frequently in the news groups and we're also supporting ISO Latin 1 for the international character set.

e-Zine!: What prompted the move into the news market? Was it just because you saw the niche as somewhat empty or because it was a natural branching out for InnoVal based on the prior Internet experience?

DP: Well, I think really it was our customers. Because just as they were asking for enhancements in the Post Road Mailer, they kept saying, "Are you guys going to do a news reader?" We heard enough people say that, that we decided they're not asking that for no reason at all.

e-Zine!: Almost as good as a pre-order, right?

DP: Right.

e-Zine!: Where does the bulk of your volume come from? Does it come from mail order, your own direct sales, retail stores, or. . .

DP: No. The bulk of it comes from corporate catalog sales.

e-Zine!: Do you have a lot of product in retail stores on shelves?

DP: No. Which is pretty much typical of OS/2 today.

e-Zine!: I've heard other ISV's complain that it is difficult to get products into retail stores.

DP: There's been that problem in the OS/2 arena for a long time. We were hoping for something to break with [Blue Orchard--an OS/2 ISV joint marketing venture that didn't succeed] but it didn't happen.

e-Zine!: Do you think this will change? Do you think OS/2 can make it in the retail or home market?

DP: I really believe, personally, that OS/2 is very solid. I really believe that OS/2 does have viability in the SOHO and the home market.

e-Zine!: Where do you see InnoVal 5 years from now?

DP: Well, it's hard to say. We're not where we thought we'd be three years ago.

e-Zine!: Are you ahead or behind where you thought you would be or just in a different place?

DP: We're in a different place but I think we're also a little ahead. We expected to be far more into the direct work-for-hire mode and we did not see ourselves in the product arena.

We have some exciting things on our plate. We're doing some very, very innovative and far reaching products right now and I think we will be definitely be solidly entrenched in the Internet marketplace.

e-Zine!: Ok. Just off the top of your head, what do you think is going to happen to OS/2 in the next five years? Do you think it's going to maintain or increase market share?

DP: I think they'll increase market share but I don't think it will be dramatic. I think their market share in large corporate markets will increase significantly. I think that the home marketplace will be a drag-along from that, because I don't think IBM is marketing to the home market and I think that they're depending on the drag-along.

e-Zine!: Do you think they should do it differently? Does it matter to InnoVal if the home market grows?

DP: I don't know if they should do it differently. I wish they would.

e-Zine!: Do you have any sway with them? Do they listen to you as an ISV?

DP: Actually, I've been very pleased lately with IBM in having talks with them.

e-Zine!: Rumours are always abounding that IBM is cutting or has cut this or that budget. Do you think that IBM is in any imminent danger of slashing development of OS/2?

DP: No, I don't think so. I really don't. I think people take budget cuts and reorganizations too seriously sometimes, especially on the Internet.

e-Zine!: I'm sure we all hope you're right on that one.

note: Next month's interview will be with Team OS/2's ex-fairy godmother, Janet Gobeille. Our man on the scene at COMDEX PacRim, Matt Ion, will be speaking to her at length so if you have questions you would like answered, send them in (make sure to put "Janet Questions" in the subject line)!

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