Please don’t hire Symbiotic to do your Mobile Applications Development

Coditta Continua!

And so it came to pass. Internet on Mobile in Africa, in Kenya, in ZIMMERMAN… is actually a reality. The jokers and Idlers and those whose life is on a mental plateau can now poke on FB at 2 MBPS. These will be the losers of this new digital age. Coders and integrators cant even stand up properly because of the mighty Erections these possibilities bring with them. These will be the WINNERS and MINTERS of this new digital age.

As I take this code-break from my Netbeans 6.8 IDE as I am currently debugging Tubonge Version 1.0 (More about this on an Internet near you soon), I hastily share this as a warning to all businesses, SMEs and Corporates wishing to engage Symbiotic in their mobile applications development.

The writing is on the wall and the coffee is already hot and aromatic. Those who will wake up and smell it, will realize that if whatever you are selling is NOT mobile, then you are not serious and if I ever meet you in town, I will kick you in the nuts if Male or brutally twist your nipples if female.

Symbiotic are SMACK in the middle of all this. They develop content, content discovery tools, monetizers and mobile social experiences.

Just like many start-up IT firms in Kenya, we meet people who suffer from the dreaded ‘Code ni Mkate syndrome’ . This is characteristic of some guys who normally have :

• Stayed outside Kenya for like 2 weeks and think they have travelled and seen it all.
• Did some obscure IT course in 1981. [Possibly in some satanic language like VB or Cobol].
• Possibly have MCSE.
• Own a Pentium 3 at home and a USB 160 GB Hard and. so, they have a data-center.
• Think they are all that in Code and can lecture at Inoorero.

So, Why not Hire Symbiotic?

• Face Value : We have clients ranging from the shop down the street to international tech companies. The size of your business doesn’t matter to us. What does matter is how seriously you take your business. If you don’t value your work enough to have it professionally presented, well, it was nice speaking with you. Because if it goes out with our name, it is going to be our best. We expect the same from our clients. Hatutaki Aibu!
• Copy-Pasters : If you are just looking to copy what your competitor ‘has just done’ so as to do the classic stupid and mee-too-istic Kenyan way of ‘matching them’ and ‘kuwafikia’, then Symbiotic will not work for you. Symbiotic does Innovation and Apps building from A to Z. Not Mimicry.
• Budgets : If you want a fully capable site with social networking, Integration with the ZungukaPay payment gateway, TumaSMS integration and a mobile client to engage your clients candidly, and your development budget is minuscule, Please don’t. We want your work to be done by our dedicated and skilled pool of IT resources. Not outsource it to Kenya Poly! A good budget is essential. Not BIG; Good.
• Scope-Creep : If you are looking for just a simple product to do step A, then ‘tutaona hizo features zingine baadaye’, then please come back when all the features are decided. We have been if far too many situations where scope is not clear and end up developing a Ferrari on the ToR of a Vitz.
• Value-Add : Many a  times, a client comes to Symbiotic with a RFQ for a product to do A and B, but gets exposed to technical awesomeness and realizes they can achieve more for their business. Open-minded clients work well with Symbiotic. If you have decided what you want and can’t even listen to suggestions, Please click next.
• Dedicated Resource : If your staff is too busy to respond to our emails or phone calls, then we suggest an engagement when they are less busy. Like my big white brother from another mother, Bill Gates, we do business at the speed of thought and canceled meetings and delayed responses don’t help much.
• Client Commitment : If your modus operandi is ‘You start the project then we will discuss finances later’, then we suggest you try hiring Rajamarasapukar Rajdinyar IT Limited from India. We have a very strict Software Development Life Cycle that we adhere to and ‘Client Commitment’ is Item 1c.

So, there you have it!

Symbiotic does not discriminate on tribe, race, pocket-size or country. We just hate mediocrity and time wasters.