Kevin Lisota

KEVIN LISOTA: I have always been a bit of a gadget freak. My house and office are loaded with technology, including multiple PCs and home servers, camera equipment, home audio, home theater and mobile devices.

Perhaps there was no better demonstration of my “gadget-nature” than when I was a product manager for Windows Mobile at Microsoft. I was on the Windows Mobile team from 2002-2004 and responsible primarily for encouraging software developers to develop applications for Windows Mobile smartphones and Pocket PCs.

Those were early, early times in the smartphone market, and Microsoft was a brand-new entrant. I was one of the very first users of the Pocket PC Phone back in 2002 and was also around when we launched the first Windows-powered smartphone. The software and hardware at that time were definitely v1 and very rough around the edges. I remember carrying a prototype smartphone to events that measured its battery life in minutes, not hours.

It was a fun job. I always had the latest prototype devices, and probably cycled through close to 30 different phones and form factors when I was there. I even got to appear on stage in front of 8,000 software developers dressed as Batman with a “utility belt of the latest devices."

Windows Mobile evolved and improved rapidly and there are now many great Windows Mobile phones on the market. Given my history, I’ve been exceedingly loyal to my roots and continued to use a Windows Mobile device -- until last week. To my own surprise, I was lured to Apple’s iPhone, not because it is a cool device (it is), but because of the Zillow iPhone App.

Today I head up an startup real estate company in Seattle called findwell. Our lives as real estate agents rely on mobile access to data and information when we are out showing homes. Our MLS has a nifty mobile website where we can login from our phones and view critical information about listings and price history. What our MLS doesn’t provide on mobile devices is access to information on all of the surrounding non-listed homes or tax records for each property.

In any given month, I might see 50+ homes. I want to be the expert on each, but find myself wanting more information when I’m out in the field. This is where the Zillow App comes in. It uses GPS to automatically locate where you are, and then draws a map with all of the surrounding properties. You can see data from tax records on how big each house is, when it last sold, and a value estimate from Zillow. If it is listed for sale on Zillow, you can also view pictures and agent contact information, though as agents we already had access to this. Access to this additional data took the iPhone from a “nice to have” gadget to a “must have” business tool for me.

There were a couple of other cool surprises that I didn’t expect to be useful on the iPhone. The compass is actually a great real estate tool. Everyone in Seattle wants to know how much sunlight you’ll get in a given location, given that it is such a prized commodity here. I can quickly show my buyers which way is South and how the sun will sweep across the yard. Buyers love this sort of data!

The nearly full-featured web browser is also a big help compared to its Windows Mobile brethren. The camera and video capabilities, while certainly useful, still are powered by a low-quality cell-phone camera. Someday they will get picture quality right with mobile phones, but not yet.

I still have a lot of friends back on the Windows Mobile team, and I apologize to them for what reads like a commercial for an iPhone. I would love to switch back, but I need their devices to match the iPhone with cool real estate apps, a great web browser, location awareness, and easily discoverable applications. I think there are currently more than 2 million licensed real estate agents out there in the U.S., and companies like Microsoft and RIM risk losing market share quickly unless they can make their devices more compelling to our industry.

Kevin Lisota is founder and president of Findwell, a Seattle-based online real estate startup. Opinions expressed in guest posts are those of the author and don't necessarily reflect the views of TechFlash.