If you never heard about Apple’s MobileMe, what do you think it does? Mobile… mobile phone? get connected anywhere? Me…. all about my stuff? Yes, you are absolutely right. It is a simple way to keep everything organize and sync. If you look closer, MobileMe is actually a web-based application which helps to store and manage your emails, contacts, calendars and files on both your computers and iPhones or iPod.

The idea is not new and so simple. Well… all the brilliant ideas are simple. The question is that what is the innovative stuff involved?

SproutCore, a javascript platform is being used to provide the desktop-like feel. This approach is definitely not new as there are plenty of similar platforms being used all over the place, you name it… Google Web Toolkit, Ext-js, Objective-J, YUI etc.

The business model is not new neither. Keep everything up to date and share large files with friends are well discussed and executed throughout the web industry.

Could MobileMe succeed? I think so…. The reasons are simple:

A. Apple has a good reputation building easy to use stuff.

B. Apple has a massive consumer base, among which there are plenty of evangelists.

C. MobileMe can solve problem, fairly enough

Bizroof platform is a Couldn’t-be-easier and the worlds most innovative customer relationship management (CRM) and events scheduling system that lets you mix business with pleasure. We’re focused on discovering new ways of organizing your address book and events.

Finished Modules:

• People are contacts in your address book. Make it easy to have an intimate knowledge of your customers’ needs, wants, and buying patterns.
• Organizations are companies, associations, groups and other social arrangements. Everyone from an organization are in one place and providing the best picture of their collective goals.
• Events are meetings, tasks, projects and other social activities. Almost certainly the best event tracking and event chain monitoring system. Simply and functional.
• Users have usernames and passwords so they can log in. Share your address book, events and all other business activities with your colleagues and friends.
• Tags connects people, organizations and events. It is flexible and easy to keep related stuff together.
• Add-ons extend Bizroof, letting you personalize your business management experience.

Events, from the software perspective, are business activities associated with the contacts in your network. It ranges widely from lunch meetings with your clients to your coleauges’ birthday parties. However, the nature of events is simple as they always consist of a summary (What), time and duration (When), location (Where), and a guest list (Who). This simplicity just forms the basis of the event management solutions, such as Google Calendar, Highrise and Bizroof.

But, simplicity is not enough in this modern world. We need it to be functional as well. If you grab a cell phone and click through its menu, you most likely to see features like digital camara, alarm, web browser etc. Some people blame the manufactures putting too much functions they never use onto a simply phone. In fact, I am one of them. But, when they pop into a shop to buy a new phone, they always ask questions the quality of its digital camara… Ridiculous? Nope, that is just a common sense of the value of money. If we buy somthing, we try to get as many as they can, and we tell ourselves that we may need them
in the future.

Both simple and functional are equally important. Therefore, the information flow within the application need to be well designed with an objective to provide best user experience. As known to all application developers, AJAX can not only help to simulate desktop-like look-n-feel but reduce the page loading time dramatically by refreshing only updated sections as well. It is a perfect solution for filerting events options, inline editing events and live search. The paragraph below descripbs a simple test and results of AJAX.

Both my coleauge and I are given a same list of tasks (e.g. create new contacts, add new events etc) to do on bizroof. My browser has javascript disabled (i.e. AJAX disabled) while his not. He finished all the tasks in 14 mins while spent 6 mins extra.

Take data sharing into consideration, softwares should be able to talk to each other, not necessarily need to synchronize. We use RSS, RTF, microformats (vcard, hcalendar, etc) to allow data easily shared with MS Outlook, google calendar, iCalendar, Address Book etc.