- Well, here we are at, where are we exactly? - We're in San Jose at the Adobe headquarters and there are nice three big towers in the middle of downtown San Jose. - And as everyone can see, you're a visitor here, as am I. - Visiting, yeah. - And why don't you introduce yourself really briefly? - So I'm Andre Charland, founder and CEO at Natobi Software. - And what do you guys do exactly? - We really focus on building rich internet applications. So we have a suite of Ajax components. We provide support for those. We also do professional services around user interface design, usability testing, and software development. - And then how about your Robot Replay? - And Robot Replay is a usability testing tool. So it lets you watch user sessions on your website. You put a snippet of JavaScript on. You can watch session playbacks. You can watch the mouse move around. It's kind of like a screencast, but it's all Ajax-based. And then we also do Flex, the error development services also for our customers. - And there's a plane going overhead. - Yeah, we're in the hotbed of technology here. - So was it Robot Replay that, I think like when I was at the Zen conference recently, I was telling you that you guys were mentioned. And I think they were using Robot Replay to do like training videos or something. - No, they're using Spotlight. - Okay, so tell us about Spotlight. - So Spotlight is like a pre-recorded or like kind of programmed screencast. It's like a little JavaScript call-out bubble or DHML thing that floats around your page and kind of blurs areas out and then gives you focus on areas you want to see. And you can animate it. It can go through buttons and pages and stuff like that. Yeah, so I know Bell Helicopter is using it to do some training sessions on the internet. - And so basically you can sort of like, say like here's the way you would click on something. - Yeah, it'll step the user through and like pop a bubble out next to the UI element you're trying to focus on. Say, you know, click here to do blah, blah, blah. Next, go here. - Right, right. - You can walk user through a form or something. - And so the other stuff that you guys, so you got the robot replay and the Spotlight. And then, you know, to put it in my own words, and then you guys also sell like Ajax widgets. - Yeah, and then we have a framework of,
2:01I guess, yeah, Ajax components. We have a really rich grid, tree grid, which is like hierarchical grid, trees, menu components, combo box, that sort of thing. - And so like, what's the market for that? Like what, you know, usually people think about RIAs. I think you and I have had this discussion like five times in recorded mediums. - Yeah. - So let's have it again. Like, what are the types of people who buy these components? - Tend to be large enterprise customers. You know, building behind the firewall type applications, accounting systems, inventory management, tracking systems. You know, really the kind of bread and butter of enterprise applications used to be desktop applications. - Right. - You know, similar stuff to what you'd see in like a flex component set, all those sort of components, but all in JavaScript. - Right, and you know, being sort of like a third party outside person, it seems like, I mean, hopefully you can look into many different developer communities, right? - Right. - And so like, I mean, first off, before I assume I know what they're like, what would you say the different developer communities are that you guys are using widgets that you're doing RIAs into? - Who are using RIAs? - Like for example, I guess I will preload it. I would say like, there's sort of like Microsoft developers, and there's like Java developers, and web developers, and like, it's interesting to have a third party perspective on like those different pools, 'cause they tend to be very myopic and insular, and not really knowing about each other so much. - Yeah, I mean, it's hard to put them in buckets. I mean, we sell server-side libraries for all our components too, right? So we have a Java, which has, you know, has struts, servlets, JSF support, all that kind of stuff. We have a .NET library, which is really improving for this quarter's release. We have PHP libraries, and classic ASP even, we still sell those, and ColdFusion libraries. So those are the kind of developers who support. Our biggest customer base tends to be in Java and .NET. That's where we get the most sales. Those are people kind of doing bigger enterprise sales. - The time has come, Andre. - The time has come. - And is there much crossover between those, or are they basically like, like the Java people buy the Java stuff? - Yeah, like the Java people and .NET, people tend to kind of stay in their own worlds.
4:02We do get some crossover from time to time, people telling us they're working with PHP on one project, and maybe ColdFusion on the next, or something like that. - Right. - Yeah, they tend to be pretty distinct. And then, you know, there's a good spread between the real enterprise, you know, it's big corporate internal developers, ISV selling to those guys, and consultants tend to be the people who buy our products. - Right, right. And then, so finally, you guys are up in Vancouver, right? - We are up in Vancouver. - And so what is the RIA scene up there like in Vancouver? - It's pretty good, you know? - Yeah, there's a lot of JavaScript developers there, a lot of designers, like a lot of designers, pretty good Flash community, too. And there's more and more Flex stuff going on all the time, too, and we're involved in the Flash meetups. Quite a few Rails guys, also. We do a lot of Rails at Motobi, and there's a good community there for it, too. - And plenty of good bars and things like that, right? - Lots of great bars and restaurants, close to Whistler. - And you guys are, you guys' offices are downtown, right? - Yeah, right downtown in Gastown, so it's kind of like the old cobblestone street. - So is that, are you guys just like wildly successful or is that like a normal place to have offices? - That's where there's a lot of high-tech companies right now. - Right. - You know, you're like in an older, kind of funkier building with like windows that open, it's bright and kind of open space. But rent's not necessarily crazy cheap, so. - Do you guys have some fun name for it, like Silicon Snow Hills or something like that? Like, you know, in Austin, everyone likes to call it the Silicon Hills, and in New York, they're like Silicon Alley versus Valley. But has Vancouver come up with a name for a-- - No, we have. We should get started on that. We just call it Gastown, you know? - That's right, just like in San Diego, right? - I don't think there's enough geeks overall in Vancouver for it to be cool to be a geek, you know? It's not like in San Francisco, you sit down at a dinner table, and probably half the people there work in some kind of web tech company. It's not like that in Vancouver, so you're still just a geek. - Well, great. Well, thanks for giving us the update there. - All right, thanks.