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I worked with Jeremy and Clive at Howard / Baines last year to build a strategy for their business development.  At the time they had a unique positioning being equally comfortable working on Mac and PC.  I thought this was worth exploiting – a rare talent and track record to prove it.

Building their strategy depended on  a couple of insights

1. Bridging the divide from opensource freeware and paid-for software is a challenge for software houses
2. Being early adopters for new software tools can bring rapid publicity

 Howard / Baines had all the tools in their toolkit to build up their company profile and reputation.  I helped them to put the right pitch to the right people at Microsoft and later Adobe which has led to their establishement as the Mitchell and Webb (Mac / PC) of the web apps world.

Here's how.

Many software houses release beta versions of their software to developers free of charge before they launch.  

Howard / Baines identifies MS desire to woo the opensource community and Meet with Approval was the app they wrote using a mix of free and paid-for software.  Adobe wanted example apps written in Air  at launch and the team delivered them AlertThingy .  Read the whole story about their case studies.

Since that time they've become a founding Microsoft BizSpark partner  and are now on retainer with a couple of software houses as lead developers for apps written in new software.

A nice touch on their website – you can subscribe to the blog by twitter – each new post is linked.  Smart. 

Postscript: from email: "I would also suggest that anyone interested hearing our news before it is public  can follow my personal rants on twitter – @jeremybaines 

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Posted in: 1 State Your Business, Biz Dev, Shout!.