Here’s an overview of the impacts to come and the vision behind Windows 10 Application Development for enterprise.

The multiplatform vision behind Windows 10 is called, Universal Windows Platform (UWP), and it will have a great impact on Microsoft tools and software users but even more so, for Microsoft application developers.

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Does the enterprise need to migrate from Windows 7 to Windows 10 or from Windows 8 or Windows XP for that matter? It is our opinion that upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10 will definitely be a positive experience for the consumer in many regards; but what about your enterprise?

The fact and the matter is, from both a marketing and technology perspective, it seems like enterprises will also benefit of migrating from Windows 7 to Windows 10 although it might have immediate repercussions on which Microsoft, apparently, has thought about!

There will be a migration cost in terms of adaptation efforts for the personnel, but also in terms of applications and systems migration and, in terms of application development process changes, which we shall explore more deeply in the next post.

Let us remind that the Windows 8 misfire (and its « metro » display which was meant to be the first serious trial at a standard multiplatform display), combined with the lack of Microsoft Smartphones and BYOD, opened the door to both Apple and Google to bring along massive volume of mobile devices among enterprises. Hence, one might question the true penetration potential of Microsoft mobile devices running on Windows 10?

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That’s right, Analystik celebrates its birthday today, that’s 30 years old… not bad, hey?

And still today, Analystik is perfectly aligned with its original mission, that is Custom Software Development but God knows how different we now go about it, in the execution…

When first starting we went from developing self-sustained and task-oriented Dos and Windows applications to Software Suites automating most or all critical business process of organizations to land today into Web and Mobile Web solutions communicating information in real time with systems within organizations.

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We have found 10 good reasons for the consumer to upgrade to Windows 10 from Windows 7 and Windows 8. As for the upgrade to Windows 10 from Windows XP, read further down below.

In particular…

Of course, one of the major changes for the Windows 7 (and less…) consumer which was used to navigate within a partitioned technology environment;  « Apple iTunes » or « BlackBerry World » or « Google Play » for Smartphone applications and Microsoft for Windows updates and upgrades, was the birth of « Windows Store » that came along Windows 8.

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Evidently, considering the massive investments required and made in IT today, purchase decisions and suppliers selection must go through Finance and sometimes even through, Board of Direction. The decision of a custom software development for an application application falls under this type of investment and the weight of this responsibility is a myth, in our opinion; the 3rd myth in our series of custom software development.

Therefore, in this context of collegiality decision-making, nobody bears on its own the weight and responsibility (the shame) of decisions, sometimes dire of consequences. And this concept of shared responsibility is becoming somewhat a generalized entrepreneurial culture in Western societies, for the better and the worst. A great many thinks that the reign of commercial software reflects such an era… and entrepreneurial culture.

Tell me what motivates you…

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Of course there were horror stories with the cost of custom software development before the New Millennium, and there will be others. But since the New Millennium though, the crown of horror stories often goes to Commercial Softwares under license like Oracle, Microsoft, SAP, etc., to which many large corporations and Governments have given humongous mandates (often outrageous purchase orders).

Evidently, the vast majority of commercial softwares’ exaggerated costs and deadline overruns come from integration and personalization; services normally de facto included within the cost of custom software development mandates but which we don’t always measure accurately the impact when buying a commercial software… since everybody else has purchased it, right!

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The New Millennium has witnessed the splendid triumph of « best practices » and « quality control » concepts, in almost all fields of activities. And most of all, best pratices and quality control have come to define the true nature of Custom Software Development in particular and IT in general, Communications and Information Technologies, which have accelerated their broadcasting.

2000 à 2010 – reminder

• Web democratization, as well as Web design and programming jobs
• Communications, Sharing & Implementation of Best Practices
• Democratization of « best practices » concept in custom software development

Who defines the concept of best practices, broadcast it and why?

Expert firms such as Gartner, Forrester, KPMG, Deloitte, etc., that counsel large corporations and assess the evolution of standards within different industries to take their pulse, which is quite useful for investors and shareholders as well as for managers. It helps decision-makers to weigh their enterprise against their industries and to get to know the necessary means to keep the pace with the competition.

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Visual Studio is one of the most popular software to create application or website in .Net environment. This software supports Sass and Less but it doesn’t compile those two languages making them complicated and useless.

In the new version (Visual Studio 2015), Intellisense has not been fixed and still has difficulties to make links between Sass and Less file types.

Even so, the new version of Visual Studio offers some new features that help us with these problems.

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To better circumcise this series of articles aiming at enlightening the myths of Custom Software Development vs Commercial Software purchase and integration, we thought it would be useful to revisit the evolution of software development.

Myths of Custom Software Development

Let’s remind us that before the turn of the New Millennium, when a company wanted to automate a process, it would have to either use internal resources or an external firm to develop its application.

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Even though it might look so, it’s not necessarily true; and some questions about it must be revisited from time to time? So, how to assess the gain of Tablets for the Mobile Workforce?

I know, I know, you must think: « Come on, are you serious? ». In 2015?  But in fact, even though everybody has a mobile device today, it’s not crystal clear whether it’s really useful or even necessary.  More than often, and many have witnessed it, mobile devices are a source of distraction at work and the cause of errors, productivity loss, time loss, data loss, etc.

Well, let’s see it through…

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Gulp plugin is a task runner. For example, you can easily: transform your Sass (or Less) files in css files, minify them, using autoprefixer, join them in 1 files, check your JavaScript files with jsLint and much more. If you code a little bit it can be really useful. It is one of my favourite tools for my web site development and it is totally free. It might be a little frightening at the beginning but with some practice and courage, it is easier than it looks.

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In this post, we will present 5 KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that are crucial to have on your Manager Dashboard if you’re to get a crystal clear vision of your Financial Services or Banking Products Sales Funnel.

There are well-known Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in Sales which, just like images, are worth a thousand words, and especially when it comes to Financial Services or Banking Products Sales, a field of activities where more than anywhere else, performance is law, right?

Some Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) can literally take your Sales Department to a whole new level; unfortunately, very few realize that.  We are thinking about all these C-level Managers here that we have come to run by over the years as a Software Developer and which have told us: « You know what? When it comes to Business Intelligence and those metrics that can tell you what’s happening with your Sales Force… well, the truth is, I’m pretty blind! »

Not that we would pretend to know or to understand perfectly the subtleties of operations of  all the many businesses at work in the field of Financial Services or Banking Products but just that, with 30 years of experience as a Software Developer including many large mandates for Banks and Financial institutions, well, we have acquired a certain expertise about what information exactly it is that Managers need and require to make sound decisions and to base their Business Development and Sales Strategy upon.

So what does the Manager – Sales Director – Marketing Director (CMO) really need to to get a clear vision of his actual Sales status?

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We will discuss 3 Web Development Best Practices that can help you safely launch your new specialized banking & financial services application. We should have said three Web Development Best Practices of security since security is so crucial in the Banking and Finance sectors and it is the main topic of this post.

Do we really have to go back and review all the security threats and online hacks and attacks that happened over just the last 5 years or so… I hope not?

All financial institutions and banks have developed a strict policy for systematically securing their critical clientele web applications. But they should also apply such a targeted policy when developing web applications dedicated to their personnel by making development choices that will address today’s security requirements and adapt to help meet tomorrow’s challenges.  Therefore, they must carefully identify all web access to database and process involved in these web application projects and assess the level of risk presented by each type of online communications or user group; ideally, at the development stage.

Because security fixing costs 100 times more to correct once in production than in development. So, it would save a lot of pain and revenues to test-find security flaws at the latter stage.

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A Gain vs. Risk analysis favors rapid development of financial & banks web applications mostly because it will shed some light on some potential design issues, which is no small matter if this happens when you’re already far down into the development process.

Whatever field of activity you’re in, if you’re thinking web applications, it clearly involves providing access in the field to both process and data to Clients and / or to the Sales Force.

And when it comes to Banking and Finance, security is of the utmost importance, of course, even more so if we’re talking mobile web deployment but one would be wise to go beyond the “personal data and hacking risk paradigm”, and assess accurately and globally the level of security needed around each of its applications and each type of data involved in your next web application development.

This exercise will benefit you by simplifying application design; thus, accelerating your web applications development.

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Sugar shack (cabane à sucre) is a tradition in Quebec and Analystik. Every year we make a reservation at one of these beautiful cabins in the woods and have a big meal together. Normally we do it in March but this year a misunderstanding in reservation process postponed our tradition to mid-April. (more…)