Marc Blank is the mytreo.net Star Developer behind ChatterEmail. ChatterEmail is the most popular third party push email client for the Treo, offering unmatched IMAP and POP3 support and the unique ability to run asynchronously so you can use your Treo for other things while ChatterEmail sends and receives in the background.

MYTREO.NET: I know you are busy Marc, so let’s dive right in. First question….how did ChatterEmail come about?

MARC: Man, that’s a complicated question. I started work on Chatter because I wasn’t happy with my choices for both instant messaging and email. So I wrote a client that did both (IM and IMAP email), because both had the kind of real-time interactivity that I was looking for. For a year or more, the focus was on IM, but as time went on I was more intrigued by the possibilities with email, so I switched focus to work entirely on email. So for the last two years or so, Chatter has been an email application, and the name was changed to ChatterEmail to reflect what it had become.

MYTREO.NET: As a ChatterEmail user I have to say it’s a great email application! You mentioned that you had an IM application before ChatterEmail. Any plans to add IM functionality back?

MARC: None at all; Chatter’s IM functionality was Jabber based, and there just wasn’t enough support in the open-source community to keep the various gateways (Yahoo, AIM, ICQ, and MSN) up-to-date and reliable. I’m not comfortable being at the mercy of unknown developers.

MYTREO.NET: Because that can put you in the difficult situation of not being able to resolve problems your customers are having and because you don’t have access to the necessary information?

MARC: Exactly! Bingo! As you know, I pride myself on service, and it’s extremely frustrating not to be able to do that. That is EXACTLY why I stopped; it wasn’t supportable.

MYTREO.NET: And given your reputation for outstanding service, your decision is very understandable.

MARC: I’m glad you understand it! I was put in a very uncomfortable position…

MYTREO.NET: Since your focus is on email functionality, what does that mean for the future of ChatterEmail?

MARC: I think there’s still a lot to be done with email. Lately, my focus has been on expanding into the more corporate side of things by creating direct Exchange sync (the EX plugin). Basically, people who use Microsoft Exchange servers can, in most cases, now have push email delivered directly to their Treo’s without the baggage of Blackberry or Good. Calendar, contacts, tasks, etc. will follow, hopefully, this fall. And then, these users can have both their corporate AND personal mail in one mail client.

MYTREO.NET: It sounds like a logical direction to go, since many Treo users also work for companies with an Exchange server.

MARC: Exactly. What’s incredible to me is that most Exchange servers are still Exchange 2000, and Blackberry/Good aren’t even available for them! Neither is ActiveSync (from Microsoft) whereas Chatter can work with Exchange Server 2000 or Exchange Server 2003. What’s more, Chatter handles all folders and subfolders and has full attachment support, something which still eludes Blackberry.

MYTREO.NET: I didn’t know that. That should be a good selling point!

MARC: I just got this a minute ago…This is an EX user who was trying to use activesync. “This product is simply amazing. Was forced to use Versamail for over a year. Needless to say my Treo is now functional again”.

MYTREO.NET: Another satisfied user. It must feel good :)

MARC: Yes, user feedback is what keeps me going. It’s VERY hard to support an email application (no less write one).

MYTREO.NET: What about the issues related to security measures IT departments take to secure their Exchange servers, such as VPN? Is this a problem for the EX plug-in?

MARC: Ah…The beauty of the EX plugin is that it doesn’t require VPN or any IT department involvement. Having said that, there are maybe 10% of installations for which it won’t work. As a general rule, if a person has OWA access to their mail, the odds are 90+% that Chatter will work for them.

MYTREO.NET: You mentioned you were looking to add synchronization with calendar and contact information for Exchange servers, but I heard this was put on hold. Any updates?

MARC: I’m not working on that myself; it’s another developer. And he’s had a lot of unrelated issues to work through that have caused a major slowdown. But it’s being worked on (and I’m told it’s nearly done as a standalone product).

MYTREO.NET: Standalone as in separate from ChatterEmail, or as an add-on to ChatterEmail?

MARC: It has been developed stand-alone, and will then be integrated (that’s the plan, anyway)

MYTREO.NET: I’m sure a lot of people are looking forward to having this functionality!

MARC: Yes, I get asked about it daily…

MYTREO.NET: I’m sure you do. Is there an ETA, or is it still too early to say?

MARC: It’s out of my hands for the most part, so I’m afraid to hazard a guess.

MYTREO.NET: Understood. About 18 months ago you added POP3 support to ChatterEmail. How has that worked out?

MARC: I added POP3 support because my customers wanted it - left to my own devices, I never would have touched it. Most people have POP3 accounts, typically Yahoo or Gmail at this point, and they want to use a single email application for all of their mail. So it was something I really had to do. I am always trying to convince people to move to an IMAP-based account, and one fortunate development is that AOL is now offering a free IMAP service. While it’s true that AOL’s IMAP implementation is substandard, it’s a far cry better than POP3. I try to steer people away from Gmail, with its flaky POP3 implementation; I hear more problems with Gmail than with all other email providers combined. And Yahoo is a paid service, so I see absolutely no value there.

MYTREO.NET: You can include me as one of those you converted from POP3 to IMAP, but I probably wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t added POP3 support. I started with POP3 because that’s what I was using, but I also had an AOL account with IMAP and started to see the benefits once I starting using ChatterEmail. This motivated me to contact my ISP/hosting service to check into IMAP support and found out it was already enabled. I just needed to connect via IMAP instead of POP3.

MARC: Yes, I hear that a lot. People start with POP3 and slowly (sometimes quickly) migrate toward IMAP. It’s really a matter of educating customers about the advantages; having free IMAP alternatives helps, of course - AOL/AIM and the 6 month free offer I have with everyone.net. I tell people (truthfully) that I’m not aware of a SINGLE advantage to POP3 over IMAP.

MYTREO.NET: What I learned was that it doesn’t hurt to just try it out and see if it works. In my case, it would have worked. But a quick call to my ISP confirmed it.

MARC: But … at least you DID look into it and switch. Lots of people could do that. It doesn’t take much effort, but it does take SOME.

MYTREO.NET: There are some differences in how IMAP works compared to POP3, especially when used with Outlook. I think this may scare some people off since they aren’t sure how to do the same things (like purging deleted emails). And there are more choices on how to set things up, which can be confusing for some people.

MARC: No question.
MYTREO.NET: ChatterEmail recently changed to version 2. What were some of the features that resulted in a change in major version nuMARCer?

MARC: Most of the big changes were in various 1.x versions (POP3, SD card support and the Summary view). But I heard from a LOT of users that there was enough new, that this shouldn’t be a 1.x product anymore. So when I integrated background SSL and had EX ready to go, I decided it was time. I’ve been very conservative with nuMARCering…

MYTREO.NET: Sounds reasonable. I guess given your policy of providing free upgrades, there is less importance behind the version nuMARCer which is usually used to indicate an upgrade fee.

MARC: Yes, all free (though there was some confusion related to MatrixSSL and 2.0); some people thought the “+” upgrade was required (but it wasn’t). In fact, the addition of MatrixSSL went down from $12 to $4.95. And at this point, ChatterEmail+ is $39.95, which compares pretty favorably with SnapperMail at $59.95 for FAR less functionality.

MYTREO.NET: I think nearly everyone would agree. What was the main reason for including SSL in ChatterEmail instead of leaving it as an add-on?

MARC: In a word, Gmail. So many people now need SSL that it became obvious that it should be an included feature. Everything that’s added to ChatterEmail is user-driven.

MYTREO.NET: As can be seen on your web site and in the forums, you are well known for providing some of the best technical support around. What percentage of your time do you spend on support vs. development and how is this changing as the nuMARCer of ChatterEmail users increases?

MARC: I spend about 75% of my time on support, I’d guess. The nuMARCer has actually gone down a bit lately, largely because of “ease of use” changes that have been added over time (setup wizards, FAQ’s, information screens). So that’s the good news from my standpoint; support load is actually down a bit while the user base in increasing.

MYTREO.NET: Is ChatterEmail a full-time effort, or do you have any other projects going on?

MARC: It’s more than a full-time effort…I had no idea what I was in for when I started work on this.

MYTREO.NET: I can imagine. I see the beta release announcements coming out at various times during the day or late evening. Seems like you are working on it 24-hours a day.

MARC: Yes, I am often asked if I ever sleep. I release beta’s whenever they happen to be “ready”, which can be at almost any hour. Support questions that come in during “normal” hours are often answered within a minute or two. Especially if they are critical issues (crashes, lost connectivity, etc.).

MYTREO.NET: I have experienced that sort of quick response from you myself on more than one occasion. By the way, thanks!

MARC: They are rarely Chatter bugs, but email is important to my customers and my goal is to try to help if I can. For example, last week, Cingular had data issues on their network. I got many dozen exasperated emails from users who couldn’t connect to their mail. So I did what I could, contacted Cingular, etc. They admitted it was their problem, and it got resolved a few hours later. But people get pretty addicted to their mail (I know I do). It’s frustrating sometimes. The worst are the “I can’t get my mail anymore”, followed by a half-dozen ever frustrated mails saying that nothing has changed, etc. Then it turns out that their password DID change, or that their server was down, etc. And I’m scrambling around looking at logs, and trying to think of what could be wrong. But overall, it’s great. I have a terrific group of users and an incredible group of beta testers and supporters who have been with me for years.

MYTREO.NET: You’ve said that the new features in ChatterEmail are customer-driven. How do you decide which features to implement and which to defer.

MARC: That’s a good question. It’s based on an admittedly subjective set of parameters, which include 1) how often the feature has been requested, 2) how much value it will add, 3) whether there’s an existing way to accomplish the same thing, 4) how difficult it is to implement, 5) how likely the change will cause unforeseen problems, etc. As the user base gets larger, I am less likely to add significant changes without a LOT of thought, to make sure that I’m not doing more harm than good. There are major enhancements that are “easy” and relatively unlikely to cause problems, and there are minor enhancements that can be very tricky to implement. It’s hard for users to see the ramifications of changes that appear simple but are actually complex, and that can cause some confusion about priorities.

MYTREO.NET: I’ve found that requests that start with “All I want is…” are usually the hard ones ;)

MARC: Exactly. Without understanding how everything works, it can be hard to see the ramifications of even a seemingly small change. So often, I’ll think, “Oh, that’s easy”, and then I start working through the details and all of a sudden it’s quite complex. When I was in the game business and working on text adventures (Zork, etc.), the thing that occupied most of our time was thinking about all the things a user might try, and all the possible “wrong” ways they might try to do things. So with ChatterEmail and feature requests, I do the same exercise - what happens if…

MYTREO.NET: Wait a second…you worked on Zork?

MARC: Yes, that was my game. A long time ago. I was in the game business most of the time between 1979 and 2004.

MYTREO.NET: Holy cow! I had no idea that was you. That’s very cool! I played all of those games growing up and in college. (For more details on Marc’s pioneering work as a game developer prior to working on ChatterEmail, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Blank).

MARC: Man, I hear that a lot! It astounds me, frankly.

MYTREO.NET: Really, those were the dawn of computer games and a very exciting time for those that were there.

MARC: It really was…

MYTREO.NET: Do you have any comments on the purchase of the PalmOS by Access and ALP (ACCESS Linux Platform), which sounds like it is supposed to be the next generation of the PalmOS?

MARC: I think the situation is confused in a number of ways. First and foremost, what is “PalmOS”? At this point, Palm owns the name, so ALP will NOT be PalmOS. And since, to my knowledge, there is no agreement between Palm and PalmSource/Access on a next generation device, it really raises some interesting questions. Regardless of what ALP is, PalmOS will be the OS in next-generation Palm devices. Whether this is something that PalmSource/Access provides or not strikes me as an open question. So yes, I’m interested in a Linux platform, but I have no idea whose platform that will be. More confusing still, ALP will support Garnet applications, so there could well be more than one OS running old Palm apps. Who knows?

MYTREO.NET: So it still looks like a “wait and see” situation for now because even if the new PalmOS was running Linux, it could still be running a version of Garnet that would continue to support existing PalmOS apps.

MARC: Effectively, yes.

MYTREO.NET: As a developer and a Treo owner, how do you use your Treo? What new features would you like to see in a future Treo?

MARC: Well, I would never call myself a typical Treo user… I use my phone 95% for email and 5% for voice. Nothing else. For new features, I see two major issues – one is the OS, and its inherent limitations. The second is battery life.

MYTREO.NET: While I think we would all like to have longer battery life, what types of changes would you like to see in the OS and what would those changes let you do differently?

MARC: The biggest problem is that there’s no protected memory, so any application can cause problems for any other application. Or damage data. Or crash the OS. And there is really no way of knowing who did what, and no way of defending against it. There are also ridiculous 64k memory limitations all over the place that comes from the original 68000 implementation. I’d say I spend 75% of my development and support time fighting those two problems.

MYTREO.NET: Wow, so if those two problems were gone, we would either have a lot more cool features in ChatterEmail or you would have a lot more free time.

MARC: Yes, probably the new features.

MYTREO.NET: That’s good to hear! I have two more questions before we finish things up. First, ChatterEmail has made life easier for many Treo owners. How has the success of ChatterEmail affected your life?

MARC: It’s made me a lot busier, that’s for sure. And it’s gratifying to have people enjoy your work; that’s as true now as it was in my game development days. It has also allowed me to go back to working at home, which I really enjoy. I didn’t start work on ChatterEmail for the money; it was really a hobby, something to keep me involved in writing software. Things just got out of hand.

MYTREO.NET: Hopefully in a good way.

MARC: Yes, for the most part. I’m working more than I would like… I was supposed to be retired a few years ago, but somehow that didn’t happen.

MYTREO.NET: Well, as a ChatterEmail user, I’m glad you didn’t retire or we wouldn’t have ChatterEmail. And the outstanding support is also greatly appreciated. I really appreciate the time you have take to answer these questions, so here is the final question: Is there anything else you would like to say to our mytreo.net readers?

MARC: I really do appreciate the support of your readers. I’d like them to know that my goal is to help them get more value out of their Treos by making their email experience as transparent, powerful, and trouble free as possible. I consider my customers to be my greatest asset, and I rely on their input (suggestions, comments, criticism) to help make ChatterEmail the best product it can be.

MYTREO.NET: I know I’m not alone in saying that that ChatterEmail is probably one of the most useful programs I have on my Treo and I use it more than anything other program on my Treo, including the phone.

MARC: I’m always happy to hear that; it’s what I’m trying to accomplish. And knowing that users are enjoying the application is what keeps me going when things get frustrating.

MYTREO.NET: You are doing a great job and it is really appreciated! Thanks again and see you around in the mytreo.net Star Developer forums.

MARC: You too. I appreciate your helping to spread the word - really, word-of-mouth is all I’ve got.

Related Links

Buy ChatterEmail now!

March 2005 interview with Marc Blank

Marc Blank’s mytreo.net Star Developer forum

Wikipedia: Marc Blank

Filed under: Editorials