In almost every case, application development represents
only a portion of these efforts. Yet thanks to their
software acumen, all have either created entirely new
revenue streams or enhanced the desirability of their
existing lines of business. With any luck, their stories
will ignite a creative spark that leads other solution
providers to explore new opportunities they hadn't previously
considered. If that's not worth knowing, then what is?
Ascentium
Bellevue, Wash.
Ascentium's claim to fame is its expertise in infrastructure technology,
application development and integration, and data reporting. That expertise
prompted Koster Finance to choose the Microsoft Gold Certified Partner over
other solution providers to move the Las Vegas-based company from its legacy
Visual FoxPro/QuickBooks implementation to a new custom application. Ascentium
developed a loan origination and tracking application using Visual Studio
(especially C#), SQL Server and Great Plains accounting software. Ascentium
touts its quick implementation of reporting applications, usually in 30 to
90 days. The company, which has a second office in Spokane, Wash., also partners
with Mondosoft on data reporting.
Back Bay Technologies
Needham, Mass.
Back Bay Technologies prides itself on deep domain expertise in applications
for fast-paced capital markets and insurance companies. It is an expert on
J2EE custom development and is also a Microsoft Certified Partner that can
spec out .Net infrastructures. On the Java side of the aisle, Back Bay is
a member of the Sun Microsystems National iForce Partner Advisory Council
and a BEA Systems Star Partner. It also partners with IBM, Oracle and Sonic
Solutions.
That neutrality helps Back Bay use technology to craft
specific business solutions to real customer problems.
The company acts as a trusted advisor to many buy-side
capital markets firms. On the lighter side, it also designed
and maintains the popular Remy Report Web site. That
is the site for Boston Red Sox play-by-play guy Jerry
Remy.
Blytheco
Laguna Hills, Calif.
Best Software's "reseller of the
year" for
seven straight years, Blytheco is
also among the top developers of add-on
solutions for Sage's (now officially
The Sage Group's) MAS accounting line. In
an intriguing twist, Blytheco got its start developing solutions for Sage's
accounting applications when it won a "cease and desist" order filed by MAS's
original publisher, State of the Art, which had inadvertently released its
source code. As a settlement, State of the Art started its Master Developer
Program, which Best has continued.
"A $3,000 modification differentiates us from others and
gets us a $200,000 sale," said Blytheco CEO Steve
Blythe. "So
while customization may represent only 10 percent of
our revenue, it's directly responsible for a significant
amount of our sales."
Citigate Hudson
New York
A Microsoft Gold Certified Partner,
Citigate Hudson focuses on the hot
business of business intelligence,
specifically building solutions that
leverage Microsoft's server software.
What's more, CTO Andrew Brust is
a Microsoft Regional Director—an
honorific title granted to fewer than 150 developers worldwide—and a well-known
specialist in SQL Server and Visual Studio who writes and lectures frequently
about Microsoft development technologies. That expertise has given Citigate
Hudson an edge in an uncertain market.
"Offshoring has forced many of us in the development world
to rethink our role and, to be frank, our value," Brust
said. "I've concentrated on building a close relationship
with Microsoft and acquiring expertise and business understanding
of its products that goes well beyond what's available
off the shelf."
Computer Decisions International
Farmington Hills, Mich.
Computer Decisions International
(CDI) has been offering SAP's Business
One small-business suite for two
years. Last month, the reseller released
Microshop, a Business One extension
that seamlessly adds just about any
capability a light manufacturer could
use—and that other SAP partners worldwide
can sell.
CDI President Daniel
Carr said the company has already
sold seven Microshop systems, which was written by the
equivalent of four full-time employees working over six
months. "Now, I have a global community and ecosystem
[of other resellers] I can attack on a single code set,
on a $50,000 investment in the toolkit and marketing.
So my ability to go global has become explosive," he
said.
Development Infostructure
Arlington, Va.
Development InfoStructure, or DevIS, uses its expertise to build applications
that cross government boundaries without compromising data or safety. A value-added
reseller to the government, DevIS created a custom reporting and visa-tracking
system for the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.S. State
Department. The browser-based solution is all open-sourced. The desktop version
uses open-source connectors to get data from the field. DevIS also offers
a secure application hosting site, which now runs an application that started
out as a client/server system running inside the State Department.
"We had to run [the application] at every single federal
agency, all with their own firewalls and rules," said
DevIS Vice President Martin Hudson. "They required us
to hit Oracle inside, but as it turned out, they couldn't
support it, and they outsourced the server to us, too."
Explore Consulting
Bellevue, Wash.
Explore Consulting is unusual in the systems integrator world. The company
staked its claim on customizing, integrating and writing add-on solutions
for on-demand software from NetSuite. In fact, business is booming for the
21-person integration firm, with revenue from Explore's NetSuite practice
growing 170 percent in the last year.
Now, the company
is readying its first mobile application—allowing
realtime order entry from a handheld device—based on
the NetSuite code. Customers are showing so much interest
in Explore's PDA application, that the company now expects
to double its revenue growth rate, to 300 percent, by
this time next year, said Explore President Steve Jones. "I
see customizing software-as-a-service becoming a big
market," he said. "For a company like ours, customization
is everything. And we've been booming."
Interknowlogy
Carlsbad, Calif.
On its home page, Interknowlogy describes
its people as "experts in .Net
tools, servers and platforms." This is not an overstatement. The custom application
development company is so good, in fact, that Microsoft often hires its key
developers to augment the vendor's own product development teams. A Microsoft
Gold Certified Partner, the firm's management serves on several Microsoft
partner advisory councils (PACs), including eBusiness, .Net and even the
U.S. sales group.
Rodney Guzman, vice president of technology at Interknowlogy,
is among roughly 30 developers on the Microsoft Architect
Council and is recognized as one of the best software
architects in the world.
Interknowlogy CEO
Tim Huckaby is a Microsoft Regional
Director whose expertise in .Net Smart Client development
is hosted on MSDN, Microsoft's Developer Network. Now
that .Net is taking off, "'I rarely have to explain what
I do now," Huckaby said.
Marlabs
Edison, N.J.
Last year, Marlabs ranked as the fastest growing application developer in
CRN's Fast Growth survey. The secret to that success: A focus on building
applications in some of the hottest areas of technology, including health
care and business intelligence.
"Health care is an industry where customers are lagging
behind in technology, and they have a culture that's
not looking purely at technology, but also at life and
death and health," said Siby Vadakekkara, Marlabs' president
and CEO.
Tier1 Innovation
Denver
With 70 employees, systems integrator Tier1 Innovation shows that the largest
firms don't have a lock on SOA expertise. That's because consulting and integration
companies of all sizes, including IBM Global Services, Accenture and BearingPoint,
are still defining what it takes to design and build an SOA. Tier1, however,
is known for its SOA templates and development efforts.
"We have some intellectual property the big guys don't
have," said Tier1 President Mark Johnston.
Tier1 is "well ahead of most of the market," according
to analyst firm Zapthink.
Copyright 2004 CMP
Media LLC.
|
