Visiting AIM Productions company - one of leading smartphone software vendors
No, we donīt mean visiting their web site, but we mean visiting their office!
Author: Jacek Rutkowski.
It was end of summer 2003, the final days of month of August - not even one year after
commercial introduction of the first Microsoft smartphone to the market (in year
2002). The sunny and warm days were almost over and rainy days were coming more
often. So a trip to the office of AIM Productions company was a nice distraction
from the coming autumn. Since a couple of friends were visiting Belgium anyway,
it was good opportunity to pay a visit to the company that produced so many
software titles for Microsoft smartphone and also not few for Pocket PC devices!
(they are doing software also for other platforms, and they have some other kinds
of business too, so production of software for Microsoft mobiles is not the only
part of their business)
The journey was passing through Germany, Netherlands and directly to Belgium,
(on picture above: list of available cellular networks in Belgium showed on
the screen of smartphone; these are : Mobistar, Orange (!) and Proximus)
where AIM Productions is located in a small city named "Kontich" that is
located very close to a major Belgian city "Antwerp". While traveling at German
highways was so much fun (no speed limits at all! you can drive 200 km/h and
nobody will care), the traveling through Netherlands and Belgium was less fun -
the 120 km/h speed limits and even bigger traffic. You must understand that all
above mentioned countries are part of EU (European Union) so when you are passing
these countries there are no border controls:
... and they all use the same currency
(Euro). So passing from Germany through Netherlands to Belgium was just a
flawless and continuous (without stops) driving.
AIM company is located on Antwerpsesteenweg street in the city of Kontich. The
problem was that this is a long street and our car navigation system equipped
with GPS unfortunately didnīt have house numbers in the database (for this
specific city) it had just street names. So we went through this street 2 times
and found the AIM second time:
... and the entrance to the company is clearly marked by a banner:
After entering the office one could notice on the left side immediately some
playing machines, one mechanical and one electronic:
... so one could immediately notice that is visiting a company making games, not
just utility software!
Unfortuantely not all people from AIM Productions, who are involved in production
of software for Microsoft mobiles, were present. Not only because this company
employs also freelancers, who are not sitting in the office, but also because
some people are at a conference in London and some people had simply vacation (leave of absence). On the following picture you can see Koen Witters:
... who is one of the Microsoft smarpthone programmers (he holds Compal
smartphone in his hand). In the background you can also observe how their office
looks from the inside.
The following picture could be entitled "artist at work":
... because making games for cell phones requires not only programmers but also
"artists" who would make graphics and sound. Picture above presents Patrick
Ceuppens, who is employed as an artist at AIM company and is making nice graphics
and original sound/music for their games. In the above picture he is sitting at
special multimedia computer/console - 2 displays connected to the same computer,
sound mixing console, scanner, etc.
One could notice that AIM Productions is selling their smartphone programs not
only through Internet (Handango, Smartphone.net) but also in form of CD-ROMs:
Last not least here is the CEO of AIM Productions company (Stefan Calle):
If you would like to learn more about this company, or if you would like to buy some smartphone or Pocket PC programs made by AIM
Productions, then visit their web site here.
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