This article is from QingCloud’s interview with Wang Meng, CEO of FIR. Im. On July 28, Wang Meng will talk about “machine • human” at QingCloud Insight 2016.
“Help enterprise developers build higher quality apps in less time”
Fir. Im has been using the cloud services provided by Qingyun since 2014. The team has been established for more than two years, providing rapid test release and crash analysis services for more than half of the Top 200 apps in App Store China.
This was the founder of raptors spare time in order to facilitate their development tools, in April 2014 formally established in krypton space company will tool is open to all companies use to send the original test version for developers to simplify the process of the only two steps, save a lot of time and redundant communication, let developers focus on application development. As they say, “Help enterprise developers build higher quality apps in less time.”
Two years later, the fir.im team released a new product – process automation platform Flow. ci invitation for internal testing, within a few months attracted 3000 people to apply for internal testing, including Japan SoftBank, Yahoo engineers.
We recently caught up with Meng Wang to talk about tech entrepreneurship, automation and their new products.
“I’m a tool freak, and I’ve always believed that if you can do something repeatable, let the machine do it.”
QingCloud: Tell me a little about yourself.
Wang Meng: I’m Wang Meng, the founder of FIR. im. I started my career in design, and I once designed and developed LV’s global official website.
I started iOS development in 2008 and worked as an independent developer for several years. It was also during this period that I realized the pain point of iOS internal test release and UDID acquisition. Although there were tools like TestFlight in foreign countries later, I still felt they were not enough to use. So I made a fir.im myself.
I am a tool-lover. I can use tools to solve problems. I will choose or develop my own tools.
I always think, repeatable things, let the machine to do, this is also my understanding of automation.
The new product Flow. ci is what I have been wanting to do for a long time. Fir. im and BugHD are just the starting point of this idea. Flow. CI is a comprehensive process automation platform. Flow. Ci can be used to automate the whole process.
QingCloud: What is the biggest feeling you have had in the past two years as an engineer?
Wang Meng: The biggest feeling is that it is difficult to grasp the connection and balance between engineer thinking and business thinking. Engineers do things very reliable, using tools to solve problems is very strong, when talking about products and technology, two eyes light up, head into the non-stop happy. But being asked how to make money, how to set prices, how to go from being an engineer to being the biggest salesperson in the company, it’s a hard thing to do, and I’m still learning. After all, companies exist to be accountable to shareholders.
Next, FIR. Im and BugHD may also have some commercial actions, so far the small scale trial results are good. The new product flow.ci will be free during the open beta and will be charged at the end of the open beta.
In short, there will be many unexpected problems in the operation and commercialization of a product, many of which are beyond the thinking of engineers or even business thinking. In addition to actively dealing with them, entrepreneurs should also have the ability to quickly adjust the state.
QingCloud: Can you introduce the new product Flow. ci?
Wang Meng: As mentioned above, Flow. CI is mainly responsible for process automation, especially the process automation of development and testing. Enterprise engineers only need to write code, and other repetitive and tedious work, such as server deployment and construction, testing and deployment on-line, can be automatically completed by Flow. ci.
The benefits of this are as follows:
High efficiency and time saving; Reducing the risk of human error; Timely informed implementation results, early detection of problems.
In addition, flow.ci features workflow mechanisms that:
Real-time view progress; Provides workflow templates for different languages and environments; Flexibility to customize your workflow based on templates.
And getting the process up and running automatically takes only 8 steps and 1-3 minutes. User experience has always been our strength, and we have put a lot of effort into the design of Flow. ci, hoping to make it easy for people to learn it and enjoy it.
“Engineers are the main producers of the Internet age, helping other people automate.”
QingCloud: How do you see the future of automation in the enterprise?
Wang Meng: Automation will greatly reduce the repetitive and tedious workload not only for enterprises, but also for individuals, and better process management. I think automation is the first step in the era of intelligent operation of enterprises and intelligent life of individuals.
Bot, Robot, Droid, Android, these terms are coming into our attention more and more, making things more automated in all areas of production and life.
Some time ago suddenly a Russian programmer fire, because he wrote a pile of scripts (automatic processing code) can automatically send messages to his wife overtime, automatic coffee, automatic leave and so on a lot of interesting functions, we can imagine this programmer lazy to even to coax his wife happy to use the machine to do the scene.
Laziness is the motive force of human progress. Because of laziness, human beings invented all kinds of tools to help themselves to do things, to the present stage, these tools are Bot.
Flow. Ci is also a Bot. Each Workflow is like a virtual robot that helps automate code quality checks, automated testing, cross-departmental message alerts, send alerts based on code and test results, and quickly locate potential project risks. Clear process progress chart can help project members to know project progress in real time, and each system involved in process steps can automatically schedule connections according to different scenarios.
Engineers are the main producers of the Internet age, helping others to automate. But the work of the engineers themselves is not well automated, and much of the day is lost in repetitive work except writing code. Therefore, we hope that Flow. CI can first automate the work of engineers, and then penetrate into other groups such as operations.
In addition to the automatic operation of the test process through flow. Ci, we have also started the attempt of automation in operation. There is already an operation Workflow running on flow. Automatically sent to Weibo, wechat, blog, third party community.
In the future, there will be more bots involved in our work and life, so that enterprises can build a more efficient human-machine organization. We can already vaguely see the appearance of an intelligent era of human-machine cooperation.
“The more robotic people are, the more they will be replaced by machines.”
Due to the limitation of time and space, it is impossible to elaborate one by one on machines, people and the more concrete appearance of future enterprises. On July 28, Wang Meng will share his interpretation of the future of “machines and people” in detail at QingCloud Insight conference. You are welcome to join us.
