FAQ
What does “akosma” stand for?
“akosma” means, in Greek, the plural of akosmos, that is, the negative of “kosmos”, a greek word related to order and harmony. As I. F. Stone explained:
Homer calls them akosma. This is the negative of kosmos, whence our words “cosmetics” and “cosmos” derive. The word implies disorder and lack of grace.
It is the plural of chaos, to put it bluntly. Oh, and yes, it happens to be the initials of the founder’s name, by the way.
Then why using such a name for a software company?
Why not? After all, the most famous reports on software project failure are called the “CHAOS” reports, and by the way, I strongly suggest you read their papers. Software projects are plagued with problems, and our name just suggest two things: pragmatism and sense of reality. We know things can go bad; we just aim to work better.
Do you have any preference over file formats?
Not at all. You can send us files created with Photoshop, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Numbers, Pages, OpenOffice, or any other similar program. But please, let’s keep our inboxes light: don’t send attachments in your mail messages. Use Dropbox instead!
I want an iPhone / iPad application. How much does it cost?
Simply put, there’s no possible answer to such a question. Imagine that you ask an architect a similar question: “I want a house. How much does it cost?”. The price can vary from that of a simple hut in the jungle to that of a castle in the French riviera. In software, the problem is similar. iPhone software projects prices can vary from some thousand Swiss francs for simple projects, to even hundreds of thousand in the case of more complex ones. The best thing to do then is to contact us and tell us what your ideas are.
Precisely, I have an idea for an iPhone application. May I ask you a quote?
Sure, but you most probably will want an NDA agreement signed beforehand, which might prompt a first meeting. If this is not the case, just contact us and I’ll come back to you with questions, and later with a quotation.
My English is not very good. What about other languages?
Sure! We can talk in English, French, Spanish and Italian. Alors, hasta luego! Ciao!