I want to clarify your ‘hole in the product offering’ comment. The distinction you point out is not a hole as much as an un-implemented feature.

As you rightly point out, overwriting a file in the underlying file system can have unintended implications, and we are being thoughtful about what choices we make for the user and what not. There are merits to the usecase that the PMP guys point out, and we have a plan to address this in an elegant way. Thankfully, it is far from the hardest thing we do.

These are all details, however. The proof of the pudding ultimately is in the user experience and the market will judge any product’s merit on how much it is delighted by it.

We started Sharpcast almost 3 years ago with the goal to be a lot more than about synchronization or about photos. It is about creating a completely seamless online-offline-mobile experience, which bridges a user’s various islands of data, whether it is their various devices, or the various applications and services online or offline.

It is about having your Mac work seamlessly with your PC and the web and your Symbian phone and never never having to do the same thing twice. It is about having a powerful way to collaborate with your friends and family. It is about never having to worry about backups. It is about a lot more things than that I don’t have the space to get into here.

We have barely un-peeled the first layer of that onion. That is why it seems today like overkill to have real-time ‘push’ sync for your photos. Give us time and it will become clear why these details are important. A truly great user experience is built on the margins and these seemingly insignificant details determine what happens at the margins. This explains why the Blackberry succeeded where umpteen other corporate email solutions failed.

We are still the top of the first inning. There is a lot of game left and we are committed to creating a user experience that we wish existed, but doesn’t — and delight our users.

Meanwhile, I would encourage anyone to try out the product and send us feedback.

Also, I prefer to think of myself as scrappy rather than feisty. That’s the Sharpcast way ;)

Thanks,

Gibu Thomas
CEO, Sharpcast