The cold hard truth

Sometimes rapid development is not just the best way, it is the only way. But this isn't bad news at all. In fact, it can save your business big money. When we do rapid development we build the framework of your application, and integrate a few processes, and begin immediate testing. This approach often exposes flaws in the design or conception, and gives you a much better picture of where the development cost lies. This allows you to adjust your budget and requirements early in the process.

Targeted development

Just creating an application for a business process is relatively easy. And most application development firms take the easy approach. You give them a specification, and they start creating the program. Is this really the best way to create an efficient application? Of course not. The problem with this approach is that it leaves a lot of efficiency on the table. Without communication back and forthe between you and the developers the end result is an application that just works. It offers no real enhancement to the process, and no efficiency gains to your business. Good communication results in great business applications. We work with you throughout every step of the application process. If we discover an obvious efficiency improvement, we'll get together with you and discuss our proposed change. Often these changes aren't even related to the actual code. We look at the flow of your business process and the flow of the application. This is real application architecture. Application architecture extends well beyond the programming and in to the very fabric of the business process. Only then can you truly expect an application that your business not only depends on, but truly helps your business. The bottom line is in creating custom applications for business that make you more profitable. This means the application has to be easy to use, intuitive to even new users, and easy to expand and extend. A modular approach Most business process can be broken down in to modules. So why not build the application in modules? This is one of the keys to effective business application design. It allows us to look at the process in pieces, and then see how each of the pieces fit together to form an exceptional program. We look at the data that comes out of each module, and determine the best way to get that information in to the next module, and how to store that data so that custom reports become as intuitive as the application itself.

Building scalable applications (And just what is scalable?)

We often hear that an application is scalable. But just what does that really mean in the real world? In plain English a scalable application can be made to fit the needs of your business as data, or the number of users using the application grows, without re-writing the application. But it goes a bit beyond that. A truly scalable application should cost you less initially. Then as the need builds for more horsepower, it can be added. Intralink may build your initial application with Windows Server 2003, and use Microsoft SQL express. As the your business grows, we can simply upgrade the SQL server version, or add licenses to increase the number of users and memory available to the application. Or, we could move to an enterprise version of SQL, and add much more hardware to increase response times, and increase availability.