Software Outsourcing   |   Art of Building Products

If there is any trend that has created such a buzz in recent times, it has got be cloud computing. But does this mean that you should provide your software-plus-service from the cloud? Or should you tread with caution and wait for the market to stabilize? This paper attempts to provide Sanity-as-a-Service to ISV’s, Software-enabledbusinesses and Enterprises on cloud-enabling their software.

SaaS has become mainstream today and it is no more a buzzword. More and more customers have started realizing the benefits of SaaS model and feel comfortable, confident and secure to use SaaS based solutions. It now becomes imperative for ISVs having traditional, on-premise software to consider SaaS seriously. While transition to SaaS may make business sense from a long-term perspective, it is not an easy thing to do. Companies have to go through several significant changes organization-wide for achieving success when migrating to an on-demand model. This paper highlights the transition challenges, and solutions to overcome them.

Building SaaS products can be even more complex and time consuming than building entreprise systems. Hence, one needs to be really sure about the engineering aspects of moving to SaaS before making the transition. This paper puts forth some fundamental elements that can be used to right-engineer (not over or under-engineer) your SaaS product. It consolidates the technology strategies to build on-demand products and is the result of helping several ISVs transition to an on-demand environment.. 

A robust SaaS product can be built with a minimalist approach. For example, Tomcat, mySQL, XML, Struts 2.0, POJO and JSP are all it takes to build a SaaS application/product using Java technology. And it can work very well too. However, there are additional tools/techniques that can be utilized effectively when building SaaS products.

Till a few years ago, enterprises could use the Web to only ‘provide’ information. But since late 2004, the internet has rapidly evolved from being just an information repository to a multi way communication platform. Changes such as collaborative features and rich user experiences have been brought about by a myriad of concepts and technologies commonly termed under the phrase Web 2.0. Being the one millionth word to be included in the English language, it has attained a lot of hype and buzz throughout. Thankfully, the concept is maturing and as Gartner puts it, less than two years away from mainstream adoption. This white paper provides a basic overview of the various Web 2.0 empowerments available to ISV’s, Software enabled businesses and non-technology enterprises.

With the increased usage of consumer internet products, many a consumer internet innovation will move into the enterprise. Product companies that don’t incorporate relevant Web 2.0 features into their products run the risk of losing out to the competition. This paper discusses software built in the consumer internet space and addresses how technology and process innovations can be leveraged to develop better and faster software.

How do you detect bugs at an early stage, remove risks in product release and reduce reworking costs? Integrated Quality Approach (IQA) is designed to address all these and more. Read on...

Performing ROI analysis on automation projects gives an understanding of approximate cost that any organization will be bearing on a particular type of testing. ROI calculations not only helps in determining an upfront on what type of automation an organization wants for the project, but also in choosing the tools and the level of skills that are  needed for the testing resources of the project. It is well perceived as a necessary task in the planning process of every project.

Success in any Test Automation effort lies in identifying the right tool for automation. A detailed analysis of various tools must be performed before selecting a tool. This paper will guide you in taking a systematic approach towards tool evaluation. The effort and learning obtained during tool evaluation will in turn help during the execution of the Test Automation project.

Software product development methodologies try to improve quality by promoting the tactic of testing early and often. If effort is focused on eliminating defects at the points of error introduction, the time spent on error detection and correction can be significantly reduced.

Any professional services organization has a very high need for team collaboration and document management. Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0 and the more advanced Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007, built on WSS 3.0, are versatile technologies that organizations of all sizes can use to increase the efficiency of business processes and improve team productivity. They also provide a platform for building custom web-based business applications that scale easily. 

Outsourced Product Development is a rapidly emerging niche as more product companies consider outsourcing their product engineering work. By partnering with an OPD firm, Independent Software Vendors are able to pay more attention to market analysis, planning and marketing their products.

Globalization, increasing competition and the need for fast time-to-market has driven many product companies to engage in an outsourcing relationship. If you are a software provider evaluating outsourced product development providers, this paper will serve as a guide for you.

Who would have ever thought that developing nations like India, China and Philippines would turn out to be a gold mine for some of the world's largest economies? What started out as an experiment by outsourcing software development activities has become a first-rate practice worldwide.

When developing new software products, engineering teams typically spend about 30% of their development time in building a scalable architecture and the plumbing layer of that architecture. As first-mover advantage is a critical differentiator for ISVs, attempts to reduce this 30% timeframe will give them a head-start. Propel is a solution that reduces the development time when building software products and enables high quality product development.

Usability is a key differentiating element of software today - whether we agree with it or not. There are many misconceptions about usability resulting in poor adaptability of usability design for a product. Also, usability should continually evolve in a product based on user feedback and it is necessary to test and measure it at every stage. This primer on usability engineering outlines simple and effective practices, tools and technology enablers for software usability.

Major changes are taking place in the way software is being built today, and the timeframes in which it gets built. Ruby-on-Rails (RoR) is an open-source web development framework that supports rapid development, extensive collaboration and has a Web 2.0 focus. This paper discusses the merits and demerits of RoR as a platform of choice for building the next generation of new web applications and products.

The higher the total cost of ownership (TCO) of a software product, the higher is the sales barrier for it. One of the factors that influences the TCO of a product and which is controllable is the complexity of architecture and design of the product in question. By adopting a Service-Oriented approach to your development efforts, you can positively influence your product and bottom-line.

Converting your ideas into software solutions has never been an easy task. When you are running short of time, it becomes even more difficult to come up with a quality product. However, utilizing a Framework-driven approach to development can crash your time-to-market substantially by making use of pre-built components, design decisions and a solid foundation to build upon. This paper features a few enterprise frameworks that will help software vendors (ISVs) enhance their product quality and crash their development time.