Exclusive Omni Group interview (part 2)
Following on the first part we gave you last week, here is the second bit of our interview with Ken Case, a founder of the Omni Group.
iT: How threatened do you feel by the rise of online applications (like Google apps) and how do you think it will affect your business model?
KC: I’m not sure whether you’re asking about online applications which are written with native tools and leverage the Internet (like Google Earth), or web applications which are written to run in web browsers (like Google Spreadsheets) and store their data online. But perhaps my answer to either question is basically the same, so it doesn’t really matter: either way, we’re talking about online technology being leveraged to build software solutions.
All software solutions are built by leveraging some set of technologies. At Omni, we happen to focus on leveraging Macintosh technologies, though we’re certainly no stranger to online apps (which I’ve been writing since the mid-’80s, before founding Omni) or to web apps (which we built a lot of during Omni’s consulting years in the late ’90s). Most technologies aren’t exclusive, and we may well make more use of online technologies in future versions of our applications. But what we’ve decided to focus on are Macintosh technologies, and we’ve done this because we feel they make us the most productive.
So do we feel threatened by online applications? No more than by Windows applications, or Java applications: none of those approaches to building software seem as appealing to us as the way we’re building our software now. And we’ll continue to be on the lookout for technologies that can help us be even more productive.
Tell us a bit about your Omniweb browser…
OmniWeb is a web browser which is designed to save you time. Everybody understands that it helps to have a nice fast network connection and a browser which renders pages quickly (and right now, we’re one of the fastest)—but even more important than that is how much time you spend doing other things, like entering a page location, looking for a web page you already have open (or trying to figure out which of the pages you have open you’ve already viewed) or tweaking the browser preferences to get a particular site working.
In OmniWeb, we’ve put a lot of time into all those details, giving you customizable URL shortcuts (so I can type “g OmniWeb” to search google for OmniWeb), graphical tabs (so I can see at a glance which pages have loaded and see which ones I’ve already viewed), multiple workspaces (so I can reduce my window clutter) and persistent workspaces (so I can resume a session right where I left off before I upgraded QuickTime), site specific preferences (so I can customize the preferences for a single site for all time), and so on.
How does Omniweb effectively challenge Safari, Firefox and others?
For years, most web browsers were designed for web authors, and their focus was on providing features that would give content providers more control over the browsing experience. (For example, they gave web authors control over opening popup windows.)
OmniWeb has always been focused first on giving control to the user: so when we first implemented the ability for a web page to open a popup window, we also made sure that the user could shut popup windows off. When we added support for animating images, we also let the user decide whether they wanted them to animate forever (like in other browsers), or just for a little while (a few times), or not at all. Because the user is the one paying for OmniWeb, they will always be the one in control.
I think that Firefox has finally adapted a bit of this philosophy (and that’s what I use it on Windows), but because their browser is cross-platform they don’t really get to leverage the full capabilities of the Mac the way we can.
What are your goals for 2007?
The same as every year: create great software, make money, and have fun! But to get a little more specific… On the software side, we’ll be introducing a completely new product (OmniFocus) and we’re hard at work on some great upgrades to our existing products. To make money, we want to make it easier to help people learn our software, so we’ll be doing some more screencasts: the screencasts we’ve already done for OmniOutliner and OmniGraffle have turned out well, and we plan to make more available this year.
As for having fun, well… After being in the same building for 12 years, we’re starting to feel a little cramped (though not nearly so much as we were in
our previous office!)—so we’ll be moving to another building. This process is a lot of work, but there’s also a large element of fun: we’ll all be meeting with an architect tomorrow to discuss how to lay out the space for Omni’s peculiar work environment. (Where does the theater go? The massage room? Is there somewhere we could put a climbing wall? What about a pottery studio?)
Any plans of offering a new productivity bundle in the future?
Rather than offering a fixed productivity bundle as we used to do, we now offer the ability for customers to build their own bundles: at our online store, you now receive a discount of 5% for each application you add to your shopping cart, up to a maximum discount of 30%.
This also applies as a quantity discount, so you’ll also get a 30% discount when you purchase six OmniPlans; or you can mix and match and get that discount when buying four OmniPlans and two OmniGraffles.
–
The folks at the Omni Group have kindly given us 2 Omniweb 5, 2 OmniGraffle Pro and 2 Omniplan licenses to share with insideTonic readers. Leave a comment below with your idea for the next Omni product… and tell us about its killer feature.
The Omni Group has also just unleashed a pre-release of its Omnifocus application, which is available for testing to users subscribed to the Omni mailing list.
Can’t wait for OmniFocus, I’ve been thinkin recently that it would be great if Omni produced a piece of software for invoicing, billing and time tracking, the current crop are lacking a lot of features and polish.
Posted at 3:30 pm on May 15th by LeandaOmniWeb always was one of my favorite browsers … Have been using Camino these past few years, mostly for the speed.
Probably time to try OW again.
Posted at 3:42 pm on May 15th by Frank SI think an Omni Group calendar program would be great.
Posted at 3:44 pm on May 15th by PeterRather than a completely new product, I’d like OmniOutliner to be able to exchange data with Backpack. The 37signals products are excellent examples of web applications done right and seem like a good fit with OmniGroup products.
I’ve been using OmniGroup software for years and regard OmniOutliner as one of the core essentials in my Mac toolbox. It is amazingly versatile. In fact if there is any one feature I’d class as characteristic of OmniGroup’s software it would be its versatility. I have OmniWeb too but it is OmniOutliner and OmniGraffle which are the stars for me. I’d love to be using OmniPlan, but I can’t afford it
Posted at 4:18 pm on May 15th by iggyI, too, am excited about OmniFocus. I hope it integrates well with iCal since iCal is so integrated into the system. Also integration with Address Book is a must.
Wondering if OmniPlan would work as an “OmniScheduler”? Probably not. Wondering if it could be tweaked to use to schedule short (1-5 days) service jobs.
Thanks for the great interviews.
Posted at 4:36 pm on May 15th by FixedOn66OmniNotes for the iPhone. one of the features: sync all my omnifocus stuff onto the iphone.
OmniPlan license would be cool
Posted at 4:50 pm on May 15th by rishabhI’m trying the OmniFocus alpha right now and it rocks. As for next products, how about:
OmniRevise - a tool to add comments, highlights, etc to a pdf doc. I’m fed up using Word just to get revision comments.
OmniCalc - I guess it depends a bit on whether Apple releases a spreadsheet in iWork but if they don’t, Omni should take a look at it.
Posted at 5:35 pm on May 15th by DenisI’d like to see Omni’s take on the multidimensional spreadsheet for the rest of us. Leveraging new Mac OS X technologies into the resurrection of the old Lotus Improv. Great (easy) Gaffle-esque graphing. It’s all about the relationship: importing/exporting to Omni’s list apps.
Posted at 5:40 pm on May 15th by PaulOmniVore
A new information Manager from Omnigroup - it’ll take anything you feed it!
I’d just like to see Omnigroup do an information manager right. KIT, EagleFiler and Yojimbo get it close (KIT closest) and then all leave something out. DevonThink tries to replace the Finder and looks terrible. Omni’s killer feature? A little girl asked a man who owned a pet duck “does your duck do any tricks” and the man laughed and said “he’s a duck, thats enough!”. If Omnigroup do an information manager right, thats enough!
If we can choose what we win, i’d really love Omnigraffle Pro - cos its way out of my budget. Got Outliner and Web. Ta anyway for the nice compo.
Posted at 5:51 pm on May 15th by Kelsang NorbuHmm.
I have always wanted a spreadsheet-like application that would let you view *and edit* the data in a flexible outline.
Think of a simple row x column setup such as:
Actor Movie Genre Role
Pitt Ocean Con Lead Con
Jolie Raider Pulp Adventure Archeologist
Jolie Smiths Spy Married spy tries to destroy husband
Pitt Smiths Spy Married spy tries to destroy wife
Craig Casino Spy Bond Noir
Farzon Smiths Doc Plays rock band leader
Using an Outlook-tasks like Group By view, you could view as:
Genre
Movie
Actor Details
One fragment would be:
Spy
Smiths
Pitt Married spy tries to destroy wife
Jolie Married spy tries to destroy husband
Casino
Craig Bond Noir
Doc
Smiths
Farzon Plays rock band leader
You could drag and drop to “pivot”:
Smiths
Spy
Pitt Married spy tries to destroy wife
Jolie Married spy tries to destroy husband
Doc
Farzon Plays rock band leader
KILLER FEATURE: able to add a new line at any point in the outline, with additional fields implicit. To add a new actor to Spy, should be able to just enter “Vaugn” and detail “Support for male spy” to show:
Smiths
Spy
Pitt Married spy tries to destroy wife
Jolie Married spy tries to destroy husband
Vaugn Support for male spy
This would be a useful feature for folk who like to think in multi-dimensional outlines.
It would have to have a data-sheet view (such as excel) for people to drill down to, if only to see how the thing works. It would be really neat to add a feature where people could design and implement simple forms as a front-end for data entry.
Tait
(p.s. I could use a copy of Omnigraffle).
Posted at 7:49 pm on May 15th by Tait StevensI would love to see Omni do a personal finance application. Something that makes double-entry bookkeeping easy to use, yet flexible enough to handle everything that comes up. LiquidLedger is a decent start, but it feels like a beta and isn’t being actively developed. GnuCash is mature, but big and unwieldy and very un-mac like. I really feel like there is a huge hole in the market for a good, powerful, intuitive personal finance program.
Can’t wait to try OmniFocus.
Posted at 10:07 pm on May 15th by Patrickthe idea of using a strict folder structure to organize personal files is broken. i would like to see Omni do something with file tagging and organization. it could even just be a QS plugin that does a better job than the current “file tagging module”; autocomplete, search for documents ny multiple tags, and a nice way to keep your tags organized, with an instant view of all tags used. this would be great.
Posted at 11:26 pm on May 15th by aaronI’d love to see: a sophisticated financial management package from a Mac-centric company. Quicken for the Mac is truly awful, and Cha-Ching is for kids for interested in looks than real money management (including stock portfolios, 401ks, and retirement planning). Quicksilver integration and compatibility with MS Money or Quicken statement downloads from financial institutions would be fantastic.
Ah, but a man can dream, can’t he?
Regards,
Posted at 1:42 am on May 16th by StevenCSteven
OmniMail — I’d love to see Omni Group create a succesor to the much-beloved (and long-discontinued) Claris Emailer.
Posted at 5:13 am on May 16th by hello_worldHow about an ovulation timer application called OmniPotent? *snort* *chuckle*
Posted at 8:28 am on May 16th by MatthewCheers,
Matthew
An application I really miss as well in the Mac world as in the PC world is a wordprocessor for technical writers. Think like word, but without the hassle. Think like TeX, but WYSIWYG. Think like LyX, but Mac native. I need equations, I need tables, I need figures, I need automatic numbering and references. Maybe something like Framemaker, but a lot easier. I don’t need a lot of fancy formatting, I need a tool to get the wrinting job done. And the only guys that could pull that off are the omni guys.
Posted at 8:49 am on May 16th by bonewoodI own OmniOutliner Pro, OmniGraffle Pro and OmniWeb. They are all core tools for me. The Omni Group are the productivity company for the Mac, providing key tools that enable users to hit higher than the rest. It’s a natural for them to do OmniFocus, quite apart from it’s roots as kGTD. I can’t wait for it. I’m intriguied by OmniPlan and after OF, that’s likely next on my list.
In terms of other tools, I recently discovered Nisus Writer Pro, which is in beta, and that looks set to keep me very happy in my hunt for a wordprocessor. From a spreadsheet point of view, I guess of all the MS products, I do respect Excel, it’s quite something, and given Apple’s likely plans, hard to enter that market without seeing what they actually provide.
For me, Omni could look at a page layout program, Pages is too low-end and InDesign too high. I’d be in the market for that.
Posted at 8:41 am on May 17th by Tommy WeirOmniNow, an instant and e-mail messaging client with message, voice, video and collaboration support for all well-established e-mail and IM systems!
Posted at 12:20 pm on May 20th by mike deltaArrgh. Posting screwed up indentation on my group by/outline list suggestion. Please feel free to email me (tait@fitis.com) for clarification.
Posted at 11:57 pm on May 22nd by Tait StevensI would also like to see a program that makes user-friendly documentation easy to write, with the capability of delivering simultanelously to Aple Help, HTML, DocBook (XML), PDF, and (if possible) plain text.
Posted at 1:02 am on May 23rd by Tait StevensJust had another idea: OmniEye: A program that watches for certain things to happen, then notifies you by a chosen method.
Examples of things one might keep an ‘Eye on:
Posted at 1:13 am on May 23rd by Tait Stevens- Stock prices (if apple ever gets below $10/share, e-mail me)
- Media releases by favorite creators (e.g. New U2 Album, new Stephen King novel, Prince concert)
- Hard drive free space (
(Darn open bracket. Trying again…)
Just had another idea: OmniEye: A program that watches for certain things to happen, then notifies you by a chosen method.
Examples of things one might keep an ‘Eye on:
- Stock prices (if apple ever gets below $10/share, e-mail me)
- Media releases by favorite creators (e.g. New U2 Album, new Stephen King novel, Prince concert)
- Hard drive free space (less than 10 GB)
- Pop/IMAP unread messages (important! allow rules to interpret; e.g. new unread messages from Ken Case)
- Webpage changes (had a defacement once; would have been nice to know sooner)
- Package delivery (FedEx, UPS, etc.)
- New software announcements from Omni (no, really…)
- Hardware monitoring (e.g. Printer ink/toner levels low)
Each watched item should allow frequency of checking and how to be notified:
- pop-up dialog
- e-mail (maybe even e-mail a list of people. Hmm.).
- log file
- growl
It could be incrementally developed with modules released as possibilities become available. More ideas on this if anyone is interested, (tait@fitis.com).
Posted at 1:14 am on May 23rd by Tait StevensThe, probably very difficult, app that I have longed for since I started using filemaker. Is a MySql database with a beautiful Omni GUI allowing simple publishing into/as webpages so that anyone can put together a filemaker like simplistic database online with out expensive hosting.
Of course, an integrated store module would be ideal as well.
Can you imagine how beautiful Filemaker Pro would be if it was made by Omni?
Posted at 3:09 am on May 25th by Matt