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Microsoft Visual Studio 2005

U.K. Readiness Guide50 Ready-to-Use ISV Solutions Developed Using Visual Studio 2005

All information contained within this directory is provided by third parties, and Microsoft does not assume any responsibility whatsoever for any such information. Without limiting the foregoing, Microsoft does not represent or warrant that the information contained in this directory is accurate, complete, or appropriate. Information in this directory about a third party or a third party’s products or services does not indicate that Microsoft endorses such third party or its products or services, or that Microsoft has any relationship with such third party. To the maximum extent permitted by law, Microsoft disclaims all warranties, express or implied, including but not limited to implied warranties of merchantability, fi tness for a particular purpose, title and non-infringement. To the maximum extent permitted by law, in no event shall Microsoft be liable for any special, incidental, direct, indirect, or consequential damages whatsoever (including, without limitation, damages for loss of profi ts, business interruption, loss of information, or any other pecuniary loss). In any case, Microsoft’s entire liability shall be limited to the amount you actually paid to Microsoft for the use of this directory. Use of this directory and the information contained herein is at your sole risk. To the extent the term “partner” is used in this directory or in any related documentation, it is used in an informal and descriptive sense, and does not indicate the existence of a legal partnership between Microsoft and any other entity.

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For more information on Microsoft Visual Studio visit:www.microsoft.com/uk/visualstudio

Microsoft Visual Studio 2005

U.K. Readiness Guide

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The role of developers is changing. No longer are they purely focused on IT, with their heads down coding all day. Modern day developers, for the most part, have to think strategically about the applications they create and how they will add value to their business or those of their employer’s customers. This new market dynamic creates a host of new challenges that complement traditional development bug-bears. Today, in many cases, developers are under the same sort of high-level pressure as business decision makers. After all, it is their job to create an application that personifi es the decision maker’s vision for how the company will achieve its targets and maintain customer loyalty. That’s a big weight on developmental shoulders.

We always strive to listen to our developer community and incorporate feedback into our product evolution. As is our duty as a large software developer, Microsoft has tried to address many of the issues developers face. The result? The Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005 development system.

Previous versions of Visual Studio were enterprise-class development systems. Visual Studio 2005 is an enterprise-ready development system. It offers developers a faster, more responsive, and predictable development experience that ensures they can make better development decisions and create innovative and mission-critical applications that add value to the bottom line.

While the art of developing may seem scientifi c or mathematical, it’s actually quite a creative process. Developers like to push the boundaries of their own talents and are always looking for development breakthrough

—that Eureka! moment when they solve a particularly hard algorithm or fi nd the solution to that broken line of code.

Contrary to popular belief, developers don’t always enjoy working in isolation. They are as much team players as anyone else in the enterprise. Visual Studio 2005 Team System addresses this craving for greater cross-company collaboration.

With Team System, we’ve extended the visibility of the development cycle to the whole of the development or project team, including those not directly responsible for coding. Team System provides the predictability and ability to solve issues before they become a major problem that the modern enterprise demands. That’s because, when you’re developing business-critical applications that often have tough deadlines, everyone needs to be on the same page.

Introduction

Matthew BishopSenior Director, Developer Platform Evangelism (DPE) Group, Microsoft Limited

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There are a lot of great things in Visual Studio 2005 that make it welcome news for developers. The integrated development environment (IDE) is much more mature than its predecessors—all the integration is there at developers’ fi ngertips. And features like Edit and Continue are development holy grail.

The launch of Visual Studio 2005 has arrived, but lots of customers have been planning for its arrival for some time. This preparation takes many shapes and forms, from exploratory proof of concept (POC) work to full-blown early adopter development of applications.

Richard Costall, Technical Architect at ISV 1st Software, who has embraced Visual Studio 2005 to evolve its product line and create a new client extranet, says: “The extranet solution took two developers just 12 weeks to create, which is much quicker than it would have taken previously. Theming and master pages mean that we can make a change to the structure of the site in minutes rather than days as we only have to update the master page. Using Visual Studio 2005 is like having an extra pair of developer hands at your disposal. That’s testament to just how good this technology is—even at beta stage.”

Fellow ISV, Link HR Systems, is also deriving business and developer value from Visual Studio 2005. Dave Verwer, Chief Technical Offi cer, says: “We fully expect to achieve a 50 per cent reduction in the amount of time spent on confi guration thanks to Visual Studio 2005. Similarly, we expect to be able to reduce the volume of code required by a third.”

The whole ethos behind Visual Studio 2005 is to help, not hinder, the development community. Using this development system, for example, Web developers will have to write, on average, half the code they do now.

Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 developers fear not. Although the migration to Visual Studio 2005 won’t be as straightforward as those moving from Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003, it is by no means diffi cult. What’s more, we’re here to support you on your journey. There’s so much information available to help you understand what’s required and ease your migration.

A small investment of time upfront will ultimately reap big rewards for your business. Surely that’s something worth being part of?

Join the development revolution today.

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Contents

Introduction .........................................................................................................4

50 Ready-to-Use Visual Studio 2005 ApplicationsISV Profi les ............................................................................................................9 1st Software ............................................................................................................10 FSI – Alfred McAlpine ...........................................................................................12 FWBS – Olswang ...................................................................................................14 Link HR .....................................................................................................................16 Matra ........................................................................................................................18 VisionWare ..............................................................................................................20

Featured ISV Applications ............................................................................. 23 Technology Matrix ........................................................................................... 71

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ISV Profi les

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Extending Financial Services Leadership through Product Evolution

Partner Details

1st Softwarewww.1stsoftware.co.uk

Industry

Financial Services

Partner Profile

1st Software is a leader in the field of financial tools. Today, it boasts a customer base of some 1,400 firms, more than 1,650 sites and more than 11,000 licensed users. In recent years, it has made more than 1,000 feature enhancements to its flagship Adviser product range. These new features have been released free of charge to customers so that they always benefit from the most up-to-date version of the technology.

Solution

The company used Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and Microsoft Visual Basic .NET to develop Adviser Evolution as well as create a new customer extranet using Microsoft ASP .NET 2.0.

Benefits

● Extranet developed in just 12 weeks.● Web parts mean less code.● Integrated tools reduce costs and raise

standards.● High levels of training and support

maximise benefits.

SituationTechnology now plays a crucial supporting role in the back offices of the financial services industry, but companies like 1st Software are trying to extend this to touch front-office sales staff too.

1st Software has enjoyed much success with its Adviser Office and Adviser tools product suites, which were built on Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 and help professional advisers accomplish a range of tasks from financial planning to mortgage advice. However, it wanted to be able to better meet customers’ needs in a dynamic market environment. It decided to create a next generation product called Adviser Evolution, and looked to the Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 development system to achieve its goals.

SolutionPaul Creamer, Chief Technology Officer, 1st Software, says: “The market is now demanding products that do different things and are easier to use and with Visual Studio 2005 and its integrated development environment (IDE), we now have the technology to help us meet those objectives.”

The company has a three-year roadmap for Adviser Evolution. It started work on building the solution, which will also make use of smart client methodology, in March 2005. The beta solution will be ready in November and released to clients in January 2006, when the independent software vendor (ISV) will continue to add new features and functionality. Adviser Evolution will also make use of Visual Studio Tools for Office and new designer controls like the Flow Layout Panel to provide an enhanced visual experience for users.

Once 1st Software had started to investigate the potential of Visual Studio 2005, it realised that it could use the development system in other areas of the business, specifically the creation of a new client extranet. The extranet is a Web-based solution written in Microsoft ASP .NET 2.0 that went live on May 15, 2005. It replaces the previous classic ASP solution and makes use of Microsoft SQL Server 2000 store procedures and XSL transformation for rendering XML.

“We’ve got several deals on the table at the moment and they’re significantly bigger than anything we have done before. And that’s a direct result of the technology we now have thanks to Visual Studio 2005.”

Paul Creamer, Chief Technology Officer, 1st Software

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Benefi tsReduced Code, Increased Benefi tsThe main benefi t of using Visual Studio 2005 for 1st Software will be the huge boost to developer productivity and the ability to add more features and functionality using less code.

Richard Costall, Technical Architect, 1st Software, says: “We have seen a 70 per cent reduction in the code needed for some common extranet tasks such as login, forgotten passwords, and registration, thanks to the provider model. Using ASP .NET 2.0 and a few lines of code for Web parts allow our customers to customise the front page so they only see what they want to. We wouldn’t have attempted to do that before as we would have had to write reams of code and use lots of JavaScript and HTML.”

Adviser Evolution will also benefi t from code reduction. Language construct changes such as generics and partial classes have reduced code requirements by as much as 300 lines in some instances.

Speeding up the Development Cycle and Raising Standards During development of both Adviser Evolution and the extranet solution, 1st Software made use of the Edit and Continue feature, which means that developers can edit code while debugging the application. This also accelerated the development cycle considerably.

Costall says: “The extranet solution took two developers just 12 weeks to create, which is much quicker than it would have taken previously. Theming and master pages mean that we can make a change to the structure of the site in minutes rather than days as we only have to update the master page. Using Visual Studio 2005 is like having an extra pair of developer hands at your disposal. That’s testament to just how good this technology is—even at beta stage.”

Maintaining Competitive AdvantageThe huge boost to developer productivity means that 1st Software will be able to respond to existing customers’ requirements much more quickly as well as providing a competitive edge in winning new business.

Creamer says: “We’ve got several deals on the table at the moment and they’re signifi cantly bigger than anything we have done before. And that’s a direct result of the technology we now have thanks to Visual Studio 2005.”

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ISV Takes Advantage of Agile Development Techniques to Respond to Modern Facilities-Management Challenges

“Using the latest Microsoft technologies, such as Visual Studio 2005 and agile development, we hope to compete on a world stage rather than just the U.K. and European stages we currently operate on.”

Karl Horner, Technical Director, FSI

SituationFacilities management (FM) is a complicated business with signifi cant pressure to reduce costs and maximise resources. ISV FSI’s Concept range of computer aided facilities management (CAFM) products, which interface seamlessly with databases such as Microsoft SQL Server, have proved very popular in responding to these challenges.

However, the ISV wanted to add to its Concept range by creating a new solution—the C700—that takes advantage of agile development techniques and is easily confi gurable. FSI decided that Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and Microsoft C# would be the ideal development environment to meet its evolution objectives.

SolutionFSI is developing both a Windows and Web-based version of C700 in parallel. It is taking advantage of the features of the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 and Microsoft ASP .NET 2.0 to improve upon its existing service oriented architecture (SOA).

The company is using agile development techniques and making use of enhanced Unit Testing to create a fi nal XML-driven product that is confi gurable enough to allow consultants to visit customer sites and easily confi gure business logic, orchestrate new workfl ows and update business validation rules. A development milestone will be January 2006, when FSI will start beta testing the product with eight of its clients, prior to full releases by July 2006.

One of FSI’s key customers, Alfred McAlpine has expressed an interest in using the enhanced C700 solution as well as Visual Studio 2005 itself. One of the company’s main systems architects collaborated with FSI during development to carry out due diligence on the C700 product architecture to ensure that the ISV’s strategy will dovetail with its own future IT strategy.

Karl Horner, Technical Director, FSI, says: “Visual Studio 2005 helps us maintain business through relationships with companies like Alfred McAlpline. It brings together like-minded, forward-thinking companies from the supply chain who can work together using innovative software to improve business performance.”

Partner Details

FSIwww.fsi.co.uk

Industry

IT Services

Parter Profi le

Since its foundation 15 years ago, FSI has built a reputation for being at the leading edge of technology in facilities- management software. The company’s Concept range is used by many leading fi nancial companies and is in use by almost a third of the FTSE 100 companies to manage their facilities management operations and property portfolios.

Solution

The company used Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 to develop the latest product in its Concept range. The C700 takes advantage of agile development techniques and is highly confi gurable and fl exible. Alfred McAlpine will be one of the fi rst companies to take advantage of the solution.

Benefi ts

● Testing automation set up time reduced by up to 40 per cent.

● Ability to win global business.● Lower total cost of development.● Greater developer satisfaction and

enhanced productivity.

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Valery Mizonov, Technical Architect, Alfred McAlpine agrees: “FSI was able to demonstrate a commitment to the latest development tools and technologies such as the .NET Framework 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005, while bearing in mind our strategic objectives and priorities. Innovations that FSI combine in the Concept C700 product will be welcomed by a market demanding more reliable, fl exible, and secure applications.”

Benefi tsReduced Costs, Increased ProductivityHistorically, the ISV has used third-party tools for testing, which often add complexity and cost to the development cycle. However, with Visual Studio 2005 and its enhanced testing features, FSI anticipates it will be able to reduce the time it takes to set up automated aspects of testing by up to 40 per cent.

Horner says: “Visual Studio 2005 will lower our total cost of ownership (TCO). At the moment we’re using lots of third-party products, but Visual Studio 2005 has so many new, built-in features it negates the need for these additional tools. The integrated test tools are so much better than before. They’ll help us speed up development and raise the quality of our software products.”

Adding Value to the Business through TechnologyVisual Studio 2005 is proving extremely popular with FSI’s development teams who are keen to make use of new features to bring their coding to the next level.

Horner says: “The ergonomics of an application are important to me. The confi gurability of the user interface is built into the development environment with Visual Studio 2005, so I don’t have to construct things from scratch. That’s a massive boost. It means I’ve outsourced all the responsibility of maintaining it to Microsoft and that allows me to get on with understanding customers’ business requirements and developing software that meets them.”

Expanding Business HorizonsFSI hopes that its use of Visual Studio 2005 will help accelerate its journey towards becoming a Microsoft Gold Certifi ed Partner, as well as providing a competitive edge, both locally and further a fi eld.

Horner says: “FSI is a medium-sized organisation working with Fortune 500 companies. As our business moves into large enterprise customers, we face competition from enterprise Java-based applications. Using the latest Microsoft technologies, such as Visual Studio 2005 and agile development, we hope to compete on a world stage rather than just the U.K. and European stages we currently operate on.”

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Leading Law Firm Prepares to Take Advantage of New Matter-Centric Management System

“We anticipate that the new version of Matter Centre, running on SQL Server 2005, will ensure that we can keep our accepted practices but enhance our operations through less complexity, less risk, and more commercial viability at just the click of a mouse.”

Clive Knott, IT Director, Olswang

SituationThe legal and professional services industries have to deal with demanding clients and strict compliance with regulations. All law fi rms must maintain accurate case records, which typically equates to masses of paper and islands of electronic data.

Microsoft Gold Certifi ed Partner FWBS developed its Matter Centre solution to respond to these challenges. The solution brings all matter-centric information together in one place—whether e-mails, attachments, or other documents—through the familiar Microsoft Offi ce interface. However, the ISV wanted to evolve the solution further and build on the success already enjoyed.

SolutionFWBS has updated Matter Centre using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0, and Microsoft C#, with Microsoft SQL Server 2005 at the back end. These technologies are primed to work together to give developers the ability to create a more secure, reliable application for less expense.

The code created is re-distributable rather than bespoke, meaning the way data is displayed is easily confi gurable without requiring additional programming. This functionality is critical to law fi rms who rely on the fl exibility of their IT systems.

Mike Walker, Chief Technology Offi cer, FWBS, says: “The development team’s mission is to improve productivity and return on investment through the creation of best-of-breed solutions. By utilising new features such as Visual Studio 2005 Team System, we will be able to control our development process in a much more integrated fashion, reducing our developers’ pain so they can concentrate on cutting code, not paperwork.”

Leading law fi rm Olswang will be one of the fi rst customers to take advantage of the enhanced Matter Centre solution. FWBS has been working closely with Olswang on planning for the implementation and will roll it out at the beginning of 2006.

Clive Knott, IT Director, Olswang, says: “We anticipate that the new version of Matter Centre, running on SQL Server 2005, will ensure that we can keep our accepted practices and enhance our operations through less complexity, less risk, and more commercial viability at just the click of a mouse.”

Partner Details

FWBSwww.fwbs.net/mattercentre

Customer Details

Olswangwww.olswang.com

Industry

Professional Services/Law

Partner Profi le

Microsoft Gold Certifi ed Partner FWBS is a leading U.K. software development house. Its offi ce management solutions are used at over 400 sites worldwide.

Customer Profi le

Olswang is a full service law fi rm known for its ground breaking work in the fi elds of media, technology, telecommunications, and real estate.

Solution

FWBS is evolving its highly-successful Matter Centre product using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and Microsoft SQL Server 2005.

Benefi ts

● Scalable system meets business needs.● Enhanced search facilities maximise

productivity.● No need for costly third-party tools. ● Replication provides business peace of

mind.

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Benefi tsRelying on the LawMany law fi rms operate from multiple locations, which are often geographically dispersed. In the event of a problem, they need to know that data has been backed up and is readily available so that fee earners can maximise billable time and continue to add value to both clients and the business. Olswang, for example, will operate two SQL Server 2005 databases—one in the Thames Valley and one in Holborn, London. If one of these servers fails, work automatically passes to the other.

Walker says: “SQL Server 2005 replication and enhanced monitoring features will be key in resolving issues before they become serious problems. SQL Server is also incredibly scalable, which will help law fi rms deal with e-mail lifecycle and document management by holding onto records for as long as required.”

Accurate Reporting is KeyFirms like Olswang will benefi t from SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services, specifi cally the new Report Builder, which makes the creation of reports even easier. Using Reporting Services, organisations can also create reports that draw data from a wide variety of sources.

Furthermore the use of Report Builder allows information workers and compliance offi cers to defi ne dynamic reports to understand the adherence and compliance of e-mails being stored within the fi rm by many different factors such as user/department/transaction. Ensuring compliance not only reduces later costs but can also assist in reducing costly insurance premiums against potential indemnity claims.

Walker says: “Law fi rms will be able to automatically generate reports to more easily track and monitor the status of cases in progress. They will also be able to set thresholds to make sure they remain compliant.”

Reducing Risk, Increasing ValuePreviously, many law fi rms have relied on third-party tools for indexing or searching the millions of records they have to manage. These are often far from cost effective. By taking advantage of SQL Server 2005 Integration Services, FWBS can build bridges to other key data stores such as the legal accounting solution, Practice Management System (PMS).

Walker says: We can now include a lot more functionality as standard in our solution so our customer benefi ts from the Microsoft brand name, fewer suppliers to deal with and, ultimately, an overall solution that is massively de-risked.”

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Leading HR Software Provider Reduces Confi guration Time by 50 Per Cent Thanks to Leading-Edge Development Environment

“We fully expect to achieve a 50 per cent reduction in the amount of time spent on confi guration thanks to Visual Studio 2005. Similarly, we expect to be able to reduce the volume of code required by a third.”

Dave Verwer, Chief Technical Offi cer, Link HR Systems

SituationHuman resources (HR) management processes differ signifi cantly between organisations. To meet individual companies’ requirements, Link HR Systems developed Link JE, a solution that supports job evaluation and internal equity management through a series of built-in quality assurance features. It was developed using classic Microsoft ASP and Microsoft ASP .NET 1.1.

The solution has been highly successful in the marketplace, but Link HR wanted to evolve the product and make it more readily and easily confi gurable to specifi c customers’ needs.

SolutionThe company relished the opportunity to become an early adopter of Visual Studio 2005, to gain both marketplace and development advantages.

Dave Verwer, Chief Technical Offi cer, Link HR Systems, says: “The beta launch was accompanied by a fundamental change in our development. We moved from a traditional waterfall approach to an agile, compressed development cycle where we aim to dramatically reduce our development times and build in quality assurance (QA) practices into our coding procedures. Visual Studio 2005 supports this vision.”

The company was drawn to specifi c features in the new development system, in particular, the reduction of common tasks needed to create a Web page application. Similarly, it hoped to reduce the level of manual intervention required for sorting and paging though the support of grid controls.

A team of 10, made up of six developers, two testers and two implementers, are working full time on the migration project. The fi rst commercial release of the new version of Link JE will go live on a demo site in October 2005 in parallel with a beta release to a number of clients. The fi rst commercial release will be available in January 2006.

Partner Details

Link HR Systemswww.link-hrsystems.co.ukwww.link-hrsystems.com

Industry

Human Resources (HR)

Customer Profi le

Founded in 1986, Link HR Systems develops specialised HR software designed to streamline reward processes by assisting with job evaluation, reward structure modelling, and equal pay. The company has more than 1,000 customers across four continents.

Solution

The company opted to use the Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 development system to evolve its Link JE solution to make it more easily confi gurable to customer requirements.

Benefi ts

● Innovative system aids competitive advantage.

● Easily confi gurable to react to changing business requirements.

● Users can slice and dice corporate HR data with new UI.

● One third less code needed.

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Benefi tsNew Solution Addresses Key Business ChallengesLink HR Systems’ success has been built on its ability to anticipate and address the typical problems its customers face. Using Visual Studio 2005 to create the next version of Link JE means that the company has a system that is fl exible enough to react to market changes quickly and easily.

Treat Hull, President, Link HR Systems, says: “Link JE reduces the delivery cost of HR services within organisations and helps HR departments deal with internal and external pressures. What’s more, it also helps clients ensure they are complying with legislative and regulatory requirements and means that they can document that compliance in a heartbeat.”

Easily Confi gurable System Boosts Developer Satisfaction One of the company’s core goals in using Visual Studio 2005 was to make Link JE easier to implement and confi gure. To achieve this, Link HR Systems has made extensive use of Microsoft Visual Basic .NET scripting, which means that developers can create any algorithm a customer wants within the application.

Developers are very satisfi ed by new user interface (UI) features in Visual Studio 2005 such as re-factoring support. When development is complete, the new system will have an innovative UI that allows users to slice and dice corporate job evaluation data however they want.

Verwer says: “We fully expect to achieve a 50 per cent reduction in the amount of time spent on confi guration thanks to Visual Studio 2005. Similarly, we expect to be able to reduce the volume of code required by a third.”

The company is also making use of Visual Studio 2005 Team System which reduces the development burden and means that developers can spend more time adding value elsewhere in the development cycle. To date, Link HR Systems runs more than 1,000 tests with Team System on a nightly basis.

Enhanced Development System Aids Competitive AdvantageLink HR Systems hopes its new solution will demonstrate market leadership and help it to maintain a competitive advantage.

Verwer says: “We have made extensive use of generics and the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0, which have given us an extra level of error checking and made it much harder for obscure bugs to slip into complex code. Visual Studio 2005 will be the core of ongoing development for our entire product suite going forward and I would certainly recommend it to other developers.”

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Enhanced Collaboration Improves Development Lifecycle for Retail ISV

“I would defi nitely recommend Visual Studio 2005 to other developers. It simply makes you more productive as a developer and as a company, and it does that very quickly and with very little risk.”

Martin Crimes, Chief Technology Offi cer, MATRA Systems

Partner Details

MATRA Systemswww.matra.co.uk

Industry

Retail

Partner Profi le

Since its foundation 15 years ago, MATRA Systems has developed multi-channel point of sale (POS) solutions that deliver business value and competitive advantage to retailers. From its offi ces in the United Kingdom and United States, MATRA serves many of the world’s leading retailers such as Woolworths South Africa, Coop Norden, HMV Group, and Somerfi eld.

Solution

The ISV is updating its FREEDOM product suite, starting with its ATLAS framework, using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005. The initial proof of concept project involves porting more than one million lines of code.

Benefi ts

● Greater business and development agility.

● Removes manual intervention. ● Enhanced collaboration.● Eliminates costly third-party tools.

SituationThe retail industry has to deal with the unique challenges of fi ckle consumers, low margins, and stiff competition. IT, particularly at the point of sale (POS) has become a key tool in helping to solve issues and deliver customer and shareholder value.

ISV MATRA Systems’ FREEDOM product suite has been assisting retailers for a number of years. The suite takes advantage of open and standard interfaces, which are fl exible and intuitive. It is based on a core framework called ATLAS, which was built on Microsoft C++, Microsoft COM, and Microsoft Visual Basic 6 components. However, the company recognised it had pushed the limits of what it could achieve using these development tools, and decided it was time to move forward. MATRA recognised that the Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 development system would be the ideal vehicle for this evolution.

SolutionIn November 2004, MATRA started a proof of concept (POC) project that involved porting more than one million lines of ATLAS code into Visual Studio 2005 as Managed C++ to identify what could be easily replaced with Microsoft .NET. Previously it would have needed two separate compilers on different machines to achieve this.

Martin Crimes, Chief Technology Offi cer, MATRA Systems, says: “We started looking at Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2005 Team System because of the tangible business and productivity benefi ts we can gain from consolidating our methodologies and adopting a global software development lifecycle (SDLC) framework.”

Using Visual Studio 2005, the ISV will benefi t from enhanced code coverage and syntax checking that identifi es problem code earlier to avoid serious errors occurring further down the line. With Visual Studio 2005, this quality assurance will take seconds rather than minutes. It also saves an additional £1,000 per developer desktop on third-party tools used alongside our previous solution.

Now that the POC is complete, MATRA plans to start porting its FREEDOM product suite components, starting with FREEDOM-POS, in early 2006.

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Benefi tsFrom Legacy to Leading EdgeMany Visual Basic 6 developers are cautious about making the move from development tools they are familiar with to the new and unknown world of Visual Studio 2005. MATRA was also concerned about how much work would be involved in the transition but has realised that the benefi ts far outweigh any investment in time.

Crimes says: “I would defi nitely recommend Visual Studio 2005 to other developers. I’ve used lots of different development environments over the years and it’s certainly the best one I’ve come across. IntelliSense and improvements to the user interface (UI) are amazing. It simply makes you more productive as a developer and as a company, and it does that very quickly and with very little risk.”

Greater Business Agility through Enhanced Development ProcessesMATRA’s experience of using Visual Studio 2005 has proved benefi cial beyond the original scope of the POC, particularly in demonstrating the company’s capabilities to customers.

Crimes says: “I used to spend up to four days creating lines of code for customer demos with Visual Basic. I’m working on a handheld console at the moment and that timescale has shrunk to just a day because using Visual Studio 2005 I only need to use 300–400 lines of code as opposed to a couple of thousand. We have to be able to react to customer demand quickly and Visual Studio 2005 makes that so much easier and gives our clients greater confi dence.”

Enabling the Global Development WorkforceThe company’s development workforce is spread across several offi ces worldwide. As such, it has employed Team System to aid project work that has historically been hindered by time zone differences.

“Visual Studio Team System was designed to address the challenges companies like us face,” says Crimes. “Communication and collaboration improvements are key to our bottom line. We operate in an agile market and therefore need to be able to rely on tools and processes which can help us keep pace with change while still delivering the high quality products we have become renowned for.”

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Software Provider Uses Leading-Edge Database and Development Tools to Dramatically Reduce Time to Market

“Once we create a build, Visual Studio 2005 runs through the testing for us, providing us with peace of mind that patch management in the future is going to be a lot easier with products we develop in Visual Studio 2005.”

An-Chan Phung, Chief Technical Offi cer, VisionWare

Partner Details

VisionWarewww.visionwareplc.com

Industry

Technology

Customer Profi le

With a user base of 100+ Public Sector Agencies, VisionWare’s MultiVue Identifi cation Server is becoming the de-facto standard for the provision of Citizen and Patient Indexes and Data Cleansing and Matching. More than 40 per cent of Scottish Local Authorities and 25 per cent of London Boroughs are implementing MultiVue to support the Client Index, CRM Integration, Debt Recovery, Benefi t Fraud Reduction, and multi-agency projects. Four of the 11 DfES Trailblazer Sites selected MultiVue to build the Child Index which is the fundamental component of Information Sharing and Assessment.

Solution

Using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and Microsoft SQL Server 2005, VisionWare updated its fl agship product, accelerating development time and improving inter-departmental communication.

Benefi ts

● Increased enterprise-wide view of new developments.

● Risk of software glitches reduced using regression testing.

● Developers save time with DTS functionality.

● Improved quality checks guarantee standards.

SituationFor more than 10 years, VisionWare has helped public sector organisations improve their connectivity and integrate their applications. However, as its client base has grown, so too have the challenges involved in integrating ever-larger organisations.

In order to maintain the competitive market position, improve inter-departmental communication and accelerate development time, VisionWare decided to upgrade its existing solution, MultiVue Identifi cation Server with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and Microsoft SQL Server 2005. In doing so, VisionWare has improved its development procedures, realising signifi cant cost and time savings in the process.

An-Chan Phung, Chief Technical Offi cer, VisionWare, says: “Our development lifecycle was very traditional. We designed the product up front and ensured all of the design, coding, and testing was complete before handing the fi nished product to marketing. However, we wanted to move to a development cycle that would let us add new and extensive functionality to MultiVue as part of a seamless development process.”

SolutionMultiVue Identifi cation Server was originally developed using Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 and Microsoft Windows Server System. Consequently, when Microsoft announced the development of Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and Microsoft SQL Server 2005, Phung and his team saw an opportunity to extend the functionality of MultiVue, taking advantage of the new features offered by both solutions.

“We found the Visual Studio 2005 Team System (VSTS) very useful. It lets us collaborate to reduce the complexity of delivering service-oriented solutions,” says Phung. “We are using the code checker functionality of VSTS along with the checking policies that ensures we only check code which compiles. That lets us do an automated build of the software every night and then execute our tests with the build. We can pinpoint at any one time if any code we have introduced had detrimentally affected the software in any way.”

On the integration with SQL Server 2005, Phung says: “Improved integration between Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 allows us to use a unifi ed development environment to design, develop, and test the full solution. The additional and improved functionality within SQL Server 2005 provides a more complete database platform for our development teams to build on top of.”

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Benefi tsClick-Once Functionality Gives All Departments Access to Latest Developments The Click-Once deployment, which is another new feature of Visual Studio 2005, has impressed the team, allowing them to expose applications they are writing to the rest of the company.

“As a software house, we would normally develop complete solutions before handing them over to marketing or sales,” says Phung. “However, we realised that those two elements are interdependent and it is essential that our marketing team is able to keep up to date with new functionality as and when we develop it.”

Using Click-Once deployment, which uploads each updated version of a solution onto a local Web site, Phung and his team are able to keep the organisation’s marketing team informed about changes and updates to new solutions they are developing. “It automatically downloads the newest version of any solution, so we don’t have to worry about version control,” says Phung.

Regression Testing Mitigates RiskRegression testing is another function of Visual Studio 2005 which has benefi ted VisionWare. Phung says: “The risks involved in releasing a new patch can be very high. To mitigate these risks, we have to re-test the whole application, but this regression testing is extremely expensive.

“Using Visual Studio 2005 we can perform automated testing as we develop the solution. Once we create a build, Visual Studio 2005 runs through the testing for us, providing us with peace of mind that patch management in the future is going to be a lot easier with products we develop in Visual Studio 2005.”

DTS Saves Resources and Developer Time Phung was also keen to make use of the Data Transformation Services (DTS) element of SQL Server 2005, which means his team do not have to waste resources re-developing older functionality.

“Prior to SQL Server 2005 we had to do a lot of work with data loading, but that is all taken care of with the new DTS functionality. We have leveraged the power of SQL Server 2005 and built on it to have a much more complete and cohesive product.”

Quality Built In to the Solution“Our customers want the product to be reliable and stable and Visual Studio Team Foundation Server along with Visual Studio 2005 allows us to manage quality a lot more effectively,” says Phung.

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Featured ISV Applications

A–J L–W

Alert Technologies ........................ 25Alfred McAlpine ............................ 25Alpha Meridian .............................. 26Andy Wigley Computing ........... 26Anglo Europe Computer Systems ............................................. 27Business Logic Systems ............... 29Capgemini ....................................... 31Cintra Corporation U.K. .............. 31Citadel Associates ......................... 32Consonica ........................................ 32Contenlo .......................................... 33Cronus Consultancy ..................... 33DPR Consulting ............................. 35Draig Technology ......................... 35EIBS .................................................... 37Entropy International .................. 37Evoke Systems ................................ 38Extranet Builders ........................... 38Faber Systems ................................ 39fl yingSPARK .................................... 39fl yingSPARK .................................... 40Information Systems Associates ........................................ 41Insights Learning and Development ................................. 41IRIS Software ................................... 42ITDP Solutions ................................ 42Jontek ............................................... 43Jump Media .................................... 43

Lakeview Computers ................... 45Laserform International .............. 45Link HR Systems ............................ 46m35 .................................................... 47MBR IT Solutions ........................... 47MBR IT Solutions ........................... 48Meridio ............................................. 48Mountain Software ...................... 49MSS .................................................... 49o2olap ............................................... 51Occam Systems .............................. 51Onesteptechnology ..................... 52Portrait Software ........................... 53Quantiv ............................................. 55Realise Systems .............................. 57Red Gate Software ....................... 57REDtechnology.com .................... 58ScreenFusion .................................. 59Select Software U.K. ..................... 59Stardraw.com ................................. 60Streatley Software Solutions ..... 60Systems Union Group .................. 61The GL Company .......................... 63True Clarity ...................................... 63University of Paisley ..................... 65Unlimitas .......................................... 65Visualfi les ......................................... 67WorkPlace Systems ...................... 69

24

24

A25

25

Alert Technologies

Founded in 2003, Alert Technologies is creative, agile, and fl exible with a distinctive vision in the business intelligence (BI) fi eld. These qualities generate innovative solutions and adaptations in a market sector which is evolving. The company is always ready to take up new customer challenges and see the world through customers’ eyes. Alert Technologies’ product vision is to offer a personalised, accessible, and pervasive information experience across the organisation’s many data sources to provide a business case for more sophisticated BI projects.

ResponseTime Alerts, now based on Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0, delivers browser-based, personalised notifi cations and alerts based on Notifi cation Services for any number of Microsoft SQL Server databases. It uses Windows Forms and Microsoft ASP .NET 2.0 to create a solution that complements the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 reporting and analysis tools to provide easy notifi cations for immediate action.

Application Synopsis

Company Background

Alfred McAlpine

Alfred McAlpine is a leading provider of IT services for a broad range of private and public sector organisations throughout the U.K. Be it providing IT consultancy, building a robust network, or managing a fully-outsourced IT solution, we help deliver business objectives with an unrivalled commitment to customer service and satisfaction. Committed to excellence through ITIL best practice and our technical and industry experience, we specialise in the provision of: IT infrastructure, network and communication, support services, telecoms, and application development services.

Revelation is a knowledge management system developed using the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0. It supports more than 3,000 users and provides secure, Web-based access to a corporate knowledge base. Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 delivered enhanced developer productivity and provided advanced Web services functionality to quickly create a robust solution capable of scaling to thousands of concurrent users. It delivers outstanding reliability with an improved user experience supported by full integration with Microsoft Offi ce via Visual Studio Tools for Offi ce (VSTO).


Company Background

“Visual Studio 2005 means reduced code lines and makes our Web form interfaces richer, which decreases our forecasted maintenance burden by 12 per cent.”

Kate PattersonTechnical Director

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

ResponseTime Alerts

Horizontal

November 2005

“By using the latest Microsoft development tools and technologies, our developers are able to implement new functionality rapidly, which often exceeds our customers’ expectations.”

Clare BeckBusiness Planning Manager

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

www.alfredmcalpineplc.com/[email protected]

Revelation

Horizontal

November 2005

Alpha Meridian

A 26

Alpha Meridian is a Microsoft Certifi ed Partner and integrated business solutions provider working with customers to deliver a range of services, packaged IT systems, and bespoke developments. It specialises in streamlining business processes through the application of IT to supply and deliver business-to-business (B2B) solutions through the Internet. Its experience includes a six-year partnership with the Royal Mail as a licensed reseller, and a customer base that includes various Government departments and the telecommunications, utilities, fi nancial services, and IT industries.

Using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, ITILogic (www.ITILogic.com) provides on-demand IT service management based on the OGC IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) standards as interpreted in the Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF). These standards include confi guration and change management, incident and problem reporting and control, release management, service level management, availability, capacity and continuity planning, and security management. ITILogic provides Web-based collaborative interaction from suppliers and integrators to users in a single seamless environment.


26

Company Background

“Only Visual Studio 2005 provided the fl exibility, performance, and adherence to standards to ensure the development of a world-class IT service management solution such as ITILogic.”

Stuart LoynesManaging Director

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

ITILogic

Financial Services

November 2005

Andy Wigley Computing

Andy Wigley Computing is a small consultancy helping companies use the very latest Microsoft technologies to solve their business problems. The company specialises in building secure solutions for small and large enterprises using mobile devices, service-oriented and messaging solutions, and custom software. All are built using the very latest technologies and techniques. The organisation also uses its expertise to develop entertainment software for Microsoft Windows Mobile software devices.

Paycheck Services engaged Andy Wigley Computing to build a new payroll system using the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0, Microsoft SQL Server 2005, service oriented architecture (SOA), and Click Once deployment. All software created is unit tested using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System. The data access layer is built using the new data component designers. Business logic makes use of Web services built with Microsoft ASP .NET 2.0, and client applications are deployed using Click Once deployment. Microsoft Offi ce Excel integration is enabled using Visual Studio Tool for Offi ce.


Company Background

“I love Visual Studio 2005 Team System because we can lay out my design in the Distributed System Designers, generate stub code for it, and then create unit tests.”

Andy WigleyTechnical Lead

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

Paycheck Services Payroll

Professional Services

May 2006

A27

27

Anglo Europe Computer Systems

Anglo Europe Computer Systems, established in 1993, meets the membership management needs of the U.K.’s not-for-profi t organisations. Today its Open Market software solution eases the process of managing interactive relationships with members and safeguards their retention and loyalty. The company’s vision for U.K. non-profi t organisations is simple: for them to enjoy the benefi ts of loyal memberships, derived from the application of an easy-to-use management system.

Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and the Microsoft .NET Framework have given us the opportunity to re-engineer our solutions into one succinct development framework. The NFP marketplace is seeing a signifi cant shift in competitors and buying patterns. It is essential that we launch the .NET product during the spring/early summer of 2006 to become the fi rst company in the sector to offer such a solution to this niche market. Visual Studio 2005 is critical in meeting these objectives.


Company Background

“The ability to migrate existing development work from Microsoft Visual Basic version 6.0 has made a signifi cant difference to our development timescales.”

Peter SinclairServices Director

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

Open Market

Non Profi t

May 2006

A 28

28

B29

29

Business Logic Systems

Business Logic Systems is a leading provider of customer loyalty and business intelligence (BI) solutions to mobile network operators worldwide. Its InTeleStage products are designed to help mobile carriers boost revenues and profi ts by analysing business and customer drivers and trends. This analysis helps deliver schemes for targeted business management, including churn management and customer loyalty/reward campaigns. The company is a Microsoft Certifi ed Gold Partner, with offi ces in the U.K., Malaysia, Australia, and Romania.

Specifi cally aimed at mobile operators for the management of prepaid users, InTeleStage Loyalty Suite was developed using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005. This has allowed Business Logic Systems to deploy true, 64-bit applications together with a 64-bit database, which delivers the capability to deploy the solution from a single, 64-bit server confi guration or in larger, more complex, multi-server confi gurations.


Company Background

“Using Visual Studio 2005 gives us the benefi t of a single-source stream for product development, no matter what size the mobile network implementation.”

Jens Schwarz-NielsenChief Technical Offi cer

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

InTeleStage Loyalty Suite

Telecommunications

November 2005

B 30

30

C31

31

Capgemini

Capgemini, one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology, and outsourcing services, has a unique way of working with its clients, which it calls the Collaborative Business Experience. Through commitment to mutual success and the achievement of tangible business value, the company helps businesses implement growth strategies, leverage technology, and thrive through the power of collaboration. Capgemini employs approximately 60,000 people and reported 2004 global revenues of €6,291 billion.

Using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, the ISV can take advantage of improvements in accessibility, Web services, and the new language features in Microsoft C#. In particular, the use of master pages as part of Microsoft ASP .NET 2.0 means that the company can create a common base fi le for consistent layout throughout the application as well as centralising accessibility issues. The consistency provided by master pages also helps with testing, as well as the obvious benefi t of reducing the development time required.


Company Background

Cintra Corporation U.K.

Formed in 1996, Cintra is dedicated to meeting the needs of today’s modern government and other public service providers. Its portfolio includes complete solutions for online licensing, taxonomy management, e-GMS metatagging, document indexing, intelligent eGMS category/keyword searching, multi-agency gateway access to public sector content, e-consultation, and local transport plan (LTP) schemes management. Cintra offers a wide range of consultancy services and provides hosting and infrastructure services that help the public sector deploy technology platforms as a managed service.

REGALION helps members of the public make licence applications to local authorities online, which meets one of the ‘priority outcomes’ of the current e-Government initiative. The system incorporates an industry-standard extensible markup language (XML) Web service, for ease of integration with external systems, and a Microsoft ASP .NET Web application, for use by members of the public, statutory consultees, and licensing offi cers. Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 makes design, development, and debugging of this application straightforward.


Company Background

“Visual Studio 2005 allows us to take advantage of improvements in accessibility, Web services, and new language features. The integrated testing tools and bug tracking result in robust applications.”

Steve OsbournTechnical Architect

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

www.capgemini.com

E-Ordering and Fulfi lment System


May 2006

“The standards compliance features available in Visual Studio 2005 are expected to ease the shift towards extensible hypertext markup language (XHTML) and Web accessibility initiative (WAI)-compliant markup.”

Aidan NaughtonDirector

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

REGALION

Government

November 2005

Citadel Associates

C 32

Citadel Associates is a leading software company providing specialist tools targeted at data management. Its market leading product, CADIS, ensures clients can create and manage corporate data. CADIS provides highly effi cient processing, cleansing, and enrichment in a consistent, fully-audited environment that is designed specifi cally for the fi nancial services industry.

CADIS is a data management platform that provides highly effi cient processing, cleansing, and enrichment in a consistent, fully-audited environment designed for the fi nancial services industry. CADIS is an integrated series of components, designed to work as a single product or a series of standalone components according to clients’ needs. The suite is designed to fi t into clients’ current architectures as a rapid-deployment solution. CADIS is built utilising Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, enabling CADIS to be a cost-effective, low-maintenance product.


32

Company Background

“The additional components bundled with Visual Studio 2005 mean we can add signifi cant value to CADIS with minimal development effort.”

David SuterChief Technical Architect

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

CADIS

Financial Services

May 2006

Consonica

Consonica aims to remove the barriers to technology adoption, allowing businesses to thrive through technology rather than being hindered by it. Consonica’s products solve diffi cult technical problems in an elegant way, but always with a strong focus on business needs. The company’s StateStitch 2005 solution makes migration from Microsoft ASP to Microsoft ASP .NET 2.0 simple and effective, by enabling ASP and ASP .NET 2.0 pages to share session data. It removes the challenge of porting an entire ASP application in one step, meaning businesses can adopt ASP.NET 2.0 at their own pace.

Consonica’s StateStitch 2005, integrated into the productive Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 development system, helps organisations to start using ASP .NET 2.0 in fi ve minutes or less while preserving their investment in existing ASP code. By allowing ASP and ASP .NET 2.0 pages to share sessions, StateStitch 2005 eliminates the need to re-write the entire application and aids an iterative migration to ASP .NET 2.0. Through StateStitch 2005, Consonica is committed to making the full power of ASP .NET 2.0 compatible with business-critical ASP applications.


Company Background

“We congratulate Microsoft on the public availability of Visual Studio 2005, the productivity and power of which have been critical to the development of our innovative products.”

Justin Santa BarbaraChief Executive Offi cer

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

StateStitch 2005

Horizontal

November 2005

C33

33

Contenlo

Contenlo develops enterprise reporting solutions. Its aim is to deliver on the simple vision that reporting is all about providing people with the information they want, where they want it, and when they want it. Contenlo’s solutions help companies deal with the increasing demand for information that results from business pressures and regulation.

Contenlo Quest Mobile Edition provides drill-down reporting to users who are away from a PC. Whether they are travelling, or just away from their desk, users have easy access to the information on their Microsoft Windows Mobile device. The information delivered can be consolidated from multiple data sources, databases, and systems. Contenlo has been able to concentrate on delivering business benefi ts with Quest Mobile as Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 made rapid development and testing on different devices easy.


Company Background

Cronus Consultancy

Cronus Consultancy was established in 1999 and specialises in consultancy based on Microsoft technologies. Its primary purpose is to deliver services such as bespoke software development, software integration, database systems, or consultancy in a professional, effi cient, and cost-effective manner. From its inception, Cronus Consultancy wanted to use the expertise and knowledge gained servicing the Jersey market to create fi nancial products to market in the global arena.

Oscar is a trust and company administration system, which processes all the information and documentation required by the fi nancial services market. It offers the client an established software solution with a number of unique features that sets it apart from alternative solutions. These include customisable workfl ow, audit trail of actions completed, and integration with Microsoft Offi ce applications. The decision was made to develop Oscar using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 because of the potential to enhance functionality and reduce development time.


Company Background

“Visual Studio 2005 makes our development resources go a lot further, particularly for mobile development where the much improved emulators have allowed us to target more devices with confi dence.”

Richard DowneyTechnical Director

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

Contenlo Quest Mobile Edition

Horizontal

November 2005

“The .NET Framework 2.0 is very comprehensive, meaning that we can provide our clients with more functionality within a reduced time frame.”

Francois RousselChief Architect

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

Oscar Enterprise

Financial Services

November 2005

C 34

34

D35

35

DPR Consulting

DPR Consulting was founded in 1996 and focuses on providing information management and collaborative solutions that use Microsoft technology. The DPR Information Management Framework is a range of systems, tools, and methods that bring together Microsoft SQL Server 2005, Microsoft Offi ce Sharepoint Portal Server, Microsoft Offi ce Business Scorecard Manager, Microsoft Exchange Server, and Microsoft Offi ce. Coupled with bespoke DPR-developed Web parts and collaborative applications, it improves business effi ciencies and saves time.

The Mortgage Administration System is a powerful and advanced set of business applications that streamline the mortgage sales process. The solution provides mortgage information collaboration, sharing, and processing. It also simplifi es the mortgage process, delivering advantages across the administration lifecycle. The nature of dynamic lending rules means that solutions must be fl exible and DPR’s use of Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and the Microsoft .NET Framework means that complex systems can be developed and deployed more quickly and safely than before.


Company Background

Draig Technology

Draig Technology was founded in 1999. Our mission is to deliver all software projects on time and to budget, whether it’s a small commission or a strategic and complex project. The company has the reputation of being Wales’ leading software house because of its excellence in the development of bespoke software solutions and the delivery of software and project management consultancy services. A specialism in multilingual software support and an emerging range of proven products extends the company’s capabilities and market focus across Europe.

draig.PMD is a sophisticated, scalable, enterprise-level application that ensures a directory of provisions, services, and products can be managed and searched on the Web. Its capabilities include: devolving information management to organisations that own the data; providing multilingual user-interface support and multilingual data management; and delivering extensive description criteria that ensures sophisticated mapping and reporting. Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 helped reduced the development effort, improving cost-effectiveness, and enhancing fl exibility, customisation, and integration.


Company Background

“DPR’s mortgage business customers demand rapid turnaround following changes in their requirements. With Visual Studio 2005 Team System, we ensure that its developer resource responds effi ciently to these needs.”

Tony ScottTechnical Director

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

www.dpr.co.uk/informationdan.wakefi [email protected]

Mortgage Administration System (MAS)

Financial Services

May 2006

“Visual Studio 2005 and the Microsoft .NET Framework are key to our ability to easily deploy and maintain solutions in our clients’ operating environments.”

Liz HedgerSoftware Development Manager

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

draig.PMD

Horizontal

November 2005

D 36

36

E37

37

EIBS

EIBS is one of the leading U.K. Content Management System (CMS) companies. Its CMS product, EasySite, has been widely adopted in the public sector by local authorities, NHS trusts, Emergency Services, and many non-government organisations. The company is based in the East Midlands and was founded in 1999 in response to the increasing market demand for scalable Web content management systems.

Using EasySite CMS, users can create and manage large Web sites. Key features include browser independence for all user levels, 100 per cent front-end management for authors, a fully confi gurable, integrated search engine, powerful and fl exible asset management, and simple and effective workfl ow. Previous versions were based on Microsoft ASP and Microsoft Visual Basic Script utilising the Microsoft SQL Server database. EasySite CMS V6 is written in Microsoft C# with the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0. Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 was used as the development system.


Company Background

Entropy International

Entropy International provides software solutions that help businesses worldwide improve their environmental, social, and economic performance, thereby contributing to global sustainability.

The Entropy System is a market-leading Web-based application for enterprise-level risk and compliance management. The solution allows multi-site, multi-national organisations to reduce operational risk and ensure compliance across their businesses therefore reducing costs, improving profi tability, and increasing shareholder value. The new framework and tools with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 means that the company can develop more effi ciently and add more features.


Company Background

“Our developers have found that the changes introduced in the Visual Studio 2005 integrated development environment (IDE) have allowed them to be much more effective in building the application.”

Julian WatsonDevelopment Director

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

EasySite CMS V6

Government

November 2005

“Visual Studio 2005 and the improvements in the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 are enabling us to build the latest version of our application more quickly, effi ciently, and with less code.”

Richard LundChief Technical Offi cer

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

The Entropy System

Horizontal

May 2006

Evoke Systems

E 38

Evoke Systems is a British software company founded in September 2001 to develop desktop, Tablet PC, and Web software for commercial fl ight operations. In 2003, the company received a Government Smart Award to carry out research and development in this area and went on to win the Microsoft U.K. Tablet PC Development Challenge the following year.

With Electronic Flight Operations System (EFOS), manual processes, paper-based systems, libraries, and most operational tasks are replaced by electronic fl ight bags which share data across the Internet. The support for data binding, Web services, and smart client architecture in Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 has let Evoke Systems develop software to improve communication with the pilot and business process effi ciency across an airline. These technologies make EFOS unique in its approach to the collection, management, and distribution of data, and ideal for this highly mobile workforce.


38

Company Background

“The new ASP .NET 2.0 data binding and membership controls in Visual Studio 2005 have signifi cantly reduced development time on our collection of Web applications and Web services.”

Dr Craig HowardTechnical Director

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

EFOS

Commercial Aviation

November 2005

Extranet Builders

Extranet Builders creates Web-based extranet and Web portal applications including its products KeyDocs, Distributed Invoicing, and Open-Report. These applications use Microsoft SQL Server and the Web to provide a winning combination of powerful solutions to clients. Extranet Builders is the development division of Madec, a software company with more than 5,000 users of its Revive product in some 41 countries worldwide.

The application transfers data from AS/400s and other back-end data sources directly to extranet Web sites. The benefi ts of using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 have been primarily around the programming model of the Microsoft .NET Framework. It is tightly integrated with Web services and we have the reassurance of using something that is guaranteed to keep pace with developments in server and operating system technologies. We have also benefi ted from the requirement the .NET Framework has placed upon us to modularise any interaction with proprietary legacy systems.


Company Background

“Customers now gain a product that is more secure, robust, easier to maintain, enhance, and build upon. Moving forward extensible markup language (XML) will play a very important role.”

Michael FoleyDirector of Extranet and Portal Development Projects

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

Revive FileFeed and OpenReport

Financial Services

November 2005

F39

39

Faber Systems

Faber Systems was founded in 1991 to provide IT consultancy and software development to the fi nancial services sector. Since that time, Faber has concentrated on developing custom-built software business solutions using Microsoft Visual Studio and Microsoft SQL Server. The company develops software for a wide range of clients and, through its partly owned subsidiary Tempora Software, markets the Tempora Web-based time and cost analysis system.

The solution means professional services businesses can accurately calculate the cost of project work and compare that with the fees charged to clients. This provides fi nance and account managers with information that is vital when managing clients’ accounts. Most other systems in the market are designed for businesses that bill time worked and do not show the cost of that time, highlighting profi t. Using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 improves the productivity of our developers and the Microsoft .NET Framework improves the reliability of our product.


Company Background

fl yingSPARK

fl yingSPARK develops mobile IT applications that let mobile workers connect seamlessly with their central offi ce systems so that they can be more effi cient, productive, and profi table. Our technology allows you to realise more value from your existing systems by extending them out into the fi eld, ensuring your mobile workforce are equipped with the essential tools to do their job, whether that is accessing the customer relationship management (CRM) system for the sales force, service database for engineers, or job information for construction work gangs.

Wireless Field Service has a wide range of industry applications for activities such as installation, maintenance, asset management, inspection, and audit. The application was developed using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and means that engineers get the information they need sent directly to their mobile devices. Advanced planning of journeys and the ability to record actions for each job on the spot minimise wasted time. The solution means that managers are able to control events in the fi eld as they happen and issue invoices as soon as a job is completed.


Company Background

“Using Visual Studio 2005 raises the productivity of our developers and reduces our development and support costs.”

Chris SmithManaging Director

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

Tempora


May 2006

“Using Visual Studio 2005 and the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0, we can provide a wide range of connectivity options, meaning that we can connect Wireless Field Service to multiple disparate enterprise systems.”

Simon WoodChief Technical Offi cer

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

www.fl yingspark.cominfo@fl yingspark.com

Wireless Field Service

Horizontal

May 2006

fl yingSPARK

F 40

fl yingSPARK develops mobile IT applications that let mobile workers connect seamlessly with their central offi ce systems so that they can be more effi cient, productive, and profi table. The company’s technology allows businesses to realise more value from their existing systems by extending them out into the fi eld, ensuring the mobile workforce is equipped with the essential tools needed to do their job, whether that is accessing the customer relationship management (CRM) system for the sales force, service database for engineers, or job information for construction work gangs.

Our market-leading mobile IT platform underpins all of fl yingSPARK’s products. Its technical excellence means application developers and systems integrators don’t have to worry about the underlying mobile data communications system. The Wireless Intelligence Layer provides a high performance, robust, cost-effective, simple-to-use communications service and development environment. Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 enabled fl yingSPARK to provide a broad range of connectivity options through a more productive and developer-friendly development environment.


40

Company Background

“fl yingSPARK’s Wireless Intelligence Layer provides a rapid development environment which is an extension of Visual Studio. This increases the market reach of our product and has halved development effort.”

Simon WoodChief Technical Offi cer

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

www.fl yingspark.cominfo@fl yingspark.com

Wireless Intelligence Layer

Horizontal

May 2006

I41

41

Information Systems Associates

Information Systems is a software development and consultancy fi rm that provides business solutions for Microsoft CRM and mobility technologies. Its specialities include Microsoft CRM with business workfl ow, voice/voice over IP (VoIP), and business intelligence (BI), particularly where the workfl ow extends to mobile devices (Pocket PCs and Smartphones). Over the last 18 years, the company has improved clients’ business processes by advising and building solutions that ensure customers can manage change effectively, streamline business processes, and become more effi cient.

ISAQuest is a mobile, data-capture solution. It creates forms dynamically on the desktop in the QBuilder application and sends them to a central server where a Web portal and workfl ow services create and dispatch tasks for remote users, recording the outcome, including signatures. The captured data is communicated back from the Pocket PC or Tablet PC device to the server for analysis in the portal. Subsequent workfl ows can then be initiated. Using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, the whole solution is easier to build, more secure, and simpler to manage.


Company Background

Insights Learning and Development

Insights Learning and Development is dedicated to improving the communication, understanding, and effectiveness of individuals, teams, and organisations. At the heart of our work is the Insights Discovery System, a powerful framework based on the work of Carl Jung. Underpinning the unique Insights Discovery System is the Discovery software. The Insights Discovery software solutions provide the environment on which we build the individually tailored personality profi les and learning and development materials that support the work we do with several of the world’s leading companies.

Insights Impressions is the only mobile software that implements the Insights Discovery personality profi ling system. Using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, the ISV can quickly write mobile code that it can re-use in its desktop products, and reduce the number of technologies needed to support the build process from end to end. Re-factoring and FxCop support helped the company to build cleaner, more maintainable code.


Company Background

“With Visual Studio 2005, we have managed to deliver three complex, interlinked applications in a much quicker timeframe. This is because of the productivity enhancements and data binding of the development system.”

Thomas PayneManaging Director

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

ISAQuest—Data Capture on the Run


November 2005

“The support in Visual Studio 2005 for re-factoring and code quality tools such as FxCop has helped us write tighter, more maintainable, and re-usable code.”

Dr Gavin GreigSenior Software Developer

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

Insights Impressions for Pocket PC


November 2005

IRIS Software

I 42

The IRIS Group is regarded as one of the leading independent software companies in Europe. More than 9,000 accountancy practices and 40,000 small businesses use IRIS Tax, Accounts Production, Time and Fees, Practice Management, Payroll, Accounting, and HR software, making it the most widely used software in this area.

The need for tighter integration of IRIS SME and Practice products, along with legislative changes in April 2006, is driving the requirement to develop a data exchange mechanism to transfer data between our applications and to the Government Gateway. Using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, we are confi dent that the proposed generic solution will be delivered ahead of schedule. The class designer and new re-factoring facilities have decreased the design and development effort, whilst the use of generics has reduced the code base, thus decreasing the overall cost of ownership.


42

Company Background

“Visual Studio 2005 has many productivity enhancing features, such as improved IntelliSense and re-factoring, which will undoubtedly make the development team more effi cient as we move forward.”

Nick DeardenHead of Platform Development

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

Exchequer


May 2006

ITDP Solutions

ITDP Solutions provides high-quality, high-defi nition software systems for Microsoft Business Solutions products. ITDP Solutions is an expert in building integration and software systems for Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains and Microsoft CRM, and has extensive experience in business-to-business integration, electronic data interchange (EDI), and simple object access protocol (SOAP) services. Its services range from short-term engagements on special initiatives to long-term projects.

dotStore is an e-commerce solution for Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains. dotStore supports key business activities affecting customers’ companies. It increases the customer base by exposing the product offering worldwide 24-hours a day, seven-days-a-week, and helps a company remain competitive in the market by improving business effi ciency and reducing overheads. By using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 to develop dotStore, the ISV’s developers can use one tool, which shortens the development lifecycle and helps it to offer more complex solutions across multiple environments.


Company Background

“We benefi t in three main areas: a more productive and integrated development lifecycle; simplifi ed and consistent applications; and increased developer productivity using the .NET Framework.”

Amit ReedDirector

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

dotStore

Horizontal

November 2005

J43

43

Jontek

Launched 16 years ago, Jontek develops solutions for local authorities and housing associations. These systems aim to improve care within the community, while providing maximum effi ciency and cost effectiveness, which are key drivers in the sector. Jontek responds to the sector’s changing needs by developing a range of high-quality, innovative, and reliable products. Its solutions are installed at 90 organisations nationwide, providing support to more than one million users.

Jontek Aegis captures carer-visit information in real time, eliminating the need for timesheet returns and reducing administration effort. It offers reassurance to both parties by monitoring any potential problems in care provision. By using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and Microsoft SQL Server 2005, Jontek has created a market-leading, mission-critical solution that helps safeguard those requiring community care.


Company Background

Jump Media

Jump Media Software was founded in 1999 as a software house for the development of applications for the mail order and e-commerce industries. The company has grown considerably and now employs more than 15 people. Its main product is the Control Point Mail Order Management System. It provides a fully integrated system that includes warehousing, accounting, customer relationship management (CRM), and e-commerce modules, and automatically processes Internet, call centre, and mail-order enquiries.

Any business that handles telephone, Internet, and mail orders for goods has the problem of how to effi ciently handle the processing of these orders and achieve a high level of customer satisfaction. Through the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0, Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, and Microsoft SQL Server 2005, we can deliver a comprehensive solution that handles all aspects of mail order: order taking, Internet synchronisation, warehousing, CRM, and accounting.


Company Background

“The built-in re-factoring and unit test feature of Visual Studio 2005 enhanced the development process of Jontek Aegis. Overall, it helped reduce the cost of developing a mission-critical solution.”

Saeed ChoudharySoftware Development Manager

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

Jontek Aegis

Healthcare

November 2005

“Visual Studio 2005 gives us a new range of tools and a better development interface that has reduced coding errors by 30 per cent.”

Bill LushLead Programmer

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

Control Point

Retail & Hospitality

November 2005

J 44

44

L45

45

Lakeview Computers

Lakeview produces, supplies, and supports mid-range business-management software and complete systems. Clients are based in the U.K. and overseas, and operate in a broad range of industries: fi nancial, distribution, manufacturing, and/or service management. Lakeview offers complete systems or software-only supply with full after-sales support. As a direct supplier, the company can handle specialist and one-off requirements.

Dominance is an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution for applications in the distribution, fi nancial, manufacturing, and service sectors. It was previously developed using Microsoft Visual Basic 6, but the latest version will use the Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 development system and integrate with other Microsoft .NET applications. Its next generation of ERP software, Lakeview, has moved to the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0. Visual Studio 2005 Team System has also supported rapid development and new language features making testing less complex.


Company Background

Laserform International

Laserform International is one of the most respected suppliers to the legal marketplace. For more than 15 years, we have been developing and marketing innovative software to help U.K. lawyers benefi t from computer technology. We provide the software and a wide array of support services to thousands of fi rms, ranging from the very largest to the sole practitioner. Our software covers many areas including: practice management software for solicitors, electronic legal forms, and legal case management applications.

The Partnership Suite is an integrated suite of legal accounts, matter manager, and work-type specifi c workfl ows. Integration with Microsoft desktop software ensures that fi rms can use existing applications. This has benefi ted considerably from Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Offi ce (VSTO) and Offi ce XML. It also integrates with Laserform’s electronic legal forms. Integration with external Web services, and deployment of the application have improved considerably due to the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0.


Company Background

“The new generation of Windows Forms means that we can give our application a modern look, while using generics has cut down the size of our code base signifi cantly.”

Peter IbbotsonTechnical Director

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

Lakeview Dominance

Horizontal

May 2006

“Our use of Visual Studio 2005 and the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0, has provided signifi cant development productivity gains.”

Doctor Leslie CaustonProduct Manager, Partner Solutions

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

The Partnership Suite

Legal

May 2006

Link HR Systems

L 46

Link HR Systems develops and markets specialised reward software to assist HR professionals in areas of computer assisted job evaluation (Link JE Intranet), reward structure design and costing (Link Pay Modeller), and equal pay audits (Link Equal Pay Reviewer). Founded in 1985, the company is a world leader in the fi eld of reward software tools with more than 1,000 client installations on four continents.

The fi rst version of Link JE Intranet established the company as a market leader in helping companies to streamline their job evaluation processes. As our market matured, Link HR Systems needed a new, enhanced product, which had to be developed quickly to maintain market momentum. Our objective is to offer clients the most confi gurable product in its class. Using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and Microsoft SQL Server 2005, we have succeeded in building a highly confi gurable and scalable system with a highly responsive Web user interface using AJAX (asynchronous JavaScript and XML) technologies.


46

Company Background

“By using Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio Team System to support our agile development processes, we have seen a 30 per cent reduction in core product code compared to our previous solution.”

Dave VerwerChief Technology Offi cer

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

Link JE Intranet


May 2006

M47

47

m35

m35 is a London-based company specialising in business software solutions for global organisations. While many of m35’s solutions support fi nancial services, they are equally applicable to other markets, including retail and fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) environments.

Datatrans is a mature application server environment that is written using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0. The evolution of the .NET Framework means m35 can support the latest industry standards and benefi t from the performance enhancements of the current version. The new Visual Studio 2005 development tools ensure a more seamless and collaborative approach to product development. m35 continues to build on its customer success with DataTrans and delivers a compelling alternative to Java-based application servers and development tools.


Company Background

MBR IT Solutions

MBR IT Solutions is a leading provider of IT services to businesses based in the U.K. Its core competencies are providing IT solutions based on Microsoft Offi ce SharePoint Portal Server and bespoke development of software that runs on the Microsoft Windows platform.

The BootFX Application Framework is a best-of-breed application framework for companies working with Microsoft .NET. It’s an Open Source package, distributed under the MPL 1.1 library, and fully supports the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 and Microsoft SQL Server 2005. Core features include fully managed code, high performance object relational mapping layer, user interface (UI) component library for Windows and Web, code generation, built-in logging, management, and instrumentation functionality.


Company Background

“The .NET Framework 2.0 has provided signifi cant performance enhancements. By optimising our existing code base for use with the new features, we can capitalise on these enhancements.”

Jason du PreezManaging Director

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

DataTrans v3

Financial Services

May 2006

“Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 takes the best of Visual Studio .NET 2003 and makes it easier to write applications. We have found the new features in Visual Studio 2005 invaluable.”

Matthew Baxter-ReynoldsManaging Director

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

BootFX

IT Services

May 2006

MBR IT Solutions

M 48

MBR IT Solutions is a leading provider of IT services to businesses based in the U.K. Its core competencies are providing IT solutions based on Microsoft Offi ce SharePoint Portal Server and bespoke development of software that runs on the Microsoft Windows platform.

Sales Sorcerer is a Web-based customer relationship management (CRM) solution for companies that sell their time. This application was originally written entirely in managed code using our previous solution. Customers demanded a slicker user interface, more personalisation features, and integration with Microsoft Offi ce SharePoint Portal Server 2003. By developing the latest version using the Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 development system and the enhancements in Microsoft ASP .NET 2.0, we have the tools and features that we need to develop these customer-led features in far less time.


48

Company Background

“Visual Studio 2005 takes the best of previous versions of the development system and makes it easier to write better applications, quicker. We have found the new features invaluable.”

Matthew Baxter-ReynoldsManaging Director

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

Sales Sorcerer

IT IT Services

May 2006

Meridio

Meridio is a leading worldwide provider of enterprise content management (ECM) software, built using the Microsoft .NET Framework. Meridio’s mission is to help senior executives meet their goals of regulatory compliance, business effi ciency, and profi tability. Meridio’s document and records management solutions deliver a comprehensive set of tools that integrate with existing Microsoft desktop and server software to provide usable and cost-effective solutions that solve business challenges and meet business goals.

Meridio provides a comprehensive compliance infrastructure that helps enterprises manage documents and records across their organisations. It reduces risk by automating the retention and disposal of information according to organisational policies and improves effi ciency by making it easy to fi nd and share key information in a secure way. Meridio meets the United States’ records management and national archives standards and takes advantage of Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 to deliver development effi ciencies and ensure high levels of integration, resilience, and scalability.


Company Background

“The combination of the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005 creates an unsurpassed environment from which to provide superior compliance solutions.”

Mark GreatorexPresident EMEA

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

Meridio

Horizontal

November 2005

M49

49

Mountain Software

Mountain Software is a leading supplier of IT solutions to solicitors, barristers, and coroners in the U.K. Since it supplied its fi rst solution in 1978 to solicitors, the organisation has worked with more than 500 clients in small to medium-sized practices, supplying a modular but totally integrated solution.

The Mountain Software Practice Management System helps solicitors manage every aspect of their business. Case management, time recording, accounts, and marketing are just a few of the areas covered by the fl exible and extensible product. Using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 gives Mountain Software a genuine competitive advantage in terms of developer productivity, and lets its customers know that it will always be up-to-date with the latest in Web services technologies.


Company Background

MSS

MSS has been dedicated to the design, supply, and support of computer-based legal management systems for more than a quarter of a century. It is one of the few Law Society recommended software solution providers. In excess of 1,600 law fi rms throughout the U.K. and Ireland currently enjoy the many commercial and operational benefi ts of AlphaLAW systems. Users of AlphaLAW software range from the large multi-branch, city-centre style fi rms to high-street practices and single practitioners.

AlphaLAW-Uno is the new case management and workfl ow system that integrates with the successful AlphaLAW-Vantage Legal Practice Management System. It has an innovative design, meaning fi rms can create easy-to-use case workfl ows that are extremely fl exible. Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 delivers an improved integrated development environment (IDE), and by using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System, MSS has reduced the burden of administration and progress tracking while improving product quality. MSS accurately predicted the amount of outstanding work and confi dently achieved schedules.


Company Background

“Visual Studio 2005 offers signifi cant productivity benefi ts for developers through a raft of new features.”

John IrwinDevelopment Director

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

Legal Practice Management


November 2005

“By using Visual Studio 2005, we brought our product to market on time, under budget, and with superior quality, which is a rare thing in the software industry.”

Tim SmithTechnical Director

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

AlphaLAW-Uno


November 2005

M 50

50

O51

51

o2olap

Launched in 1991, o2olap is a niche international provider of fast and effi cient analytical and fi nancial reporting solutions that use Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and Analysis Services such as o2olap for Excel and BIWeb XML. o2olap’s experience ensures the correct design, development, implementation, training, and support for diverse solutions in both Web and Microsoft Offi ce environments. o2olap helped create the fi rst dynamic business intelligence solution with direct integration from the Web to dynamic Microsoft Offi ce Excel spreadsheet software.

o2olap for Excel and BIWeb XML are innovative, mature, and fl exible Microsoft Excel and Web-based interfaces to SQL Server 2005 and Analysis Services 2005. SQL Server 2005 facilitates the faster development and deployment of online analytical processing (OLAP) solutions to an enterprise-wide audience with o2olap and BIWeb XML providing the interface for users to browse, slice, dice and model cube information into dynamic, fl exible Excel and Web-based reporting solutions. The Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 toolset reduced the ISV’s development time whilst also improving reliability, scalability, and performance.


Company Background

Occam Systems

Occam was founded in 1998 to meet the demand for software that manages room bookings for students and key worker accommodation. Its Room Service solution is used by universities for managing student accommodation, and by conference and training centres for managing events, meeting rooms, and associated services. Room Service provides an easy-to-use solution for any organisation that wishes to manage the booking of rooms.

Room Service is for organisations that wish to optimise the utilisation of rooms. It is designed to manage bookings for bedrooms and meeting rooms along with associated catering and audio visual services. It calculates charges for the bookings and processes invoices and payments. With its integral data mining grid, operational information is extracted easily. Room Service, written using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, integrates with Microsoft Offi ce Word and Microsoft Offi ce Excel. It uses Web services to provide intranet or Internet self-service solutions.


Company Background

“Visual Studio 2005 meant we quickly migrated o2olap for Excel and BI Web to the Microsoft .NET Framework and reduced development time signifi cantly.”

Howard TaylorManaging Director

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

o2olap for Excel and BI Web

Financial Services

November 2005

“We moved to Visual Studio 2005 because of the big improvements in Microsoft C++ integration in the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0.”

Gavin ClarkProduct Manager

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

Room Service

Education

November 2005

Onesteptechnology

O 52

Onesteptechnology is a new dynamic company using the latest Microsoft products and services to deliver vertical market solutions.

Information Management Assistant (IMA) was developed to solve the problems of managing the huge amount of information involved in running a successful recruitment company. It was designed around customer feedback, adding a unique workfl ow and structure to the process. Using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and the Microsoft .NET Framework, the company has been able to develop user-friendly, visually-attractive Windows Forms in less time. The new controls have reduced the development cycle and given the ISV more time to spend on developing business processes.


52

Company Background

“The new features in Visual Studio 2005 have helped us to speed up our development cycles giving us more time for customer interaction and development of new features.”

James KnowlesDevelopment Manager

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

IMA

Recruitment Software

May 2006

P53

53

Portrait Software

Founded in 1986 in the U.K., Portrait Software specialises in customer interaction management solutions software, which builds more responsive, profi table customer relationships. Portrait Foundation is a specialised application environment suite that helps software vendors, integrators, and outsourcers develop process-driven, customer-critical applications faster, especially using the Microsoft .NET Framework. The company employs 110 staff worldwide and has a customer base of more than 150 mainly blue-chip organisations in 23 countries.

Portrait Foundation is a specialised application suite optimised for developing customer-critical business processes in a .NET environment. Portrait comes with the essentials of customer interactivity management built-in so developers focus on designing better processes instead of on workfl ow, interfaces, and managing a data model. Through software and application development kits based on Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, Portrait developers and partners can extend the functionality of their environments to rapidly deliver new customer interaction management (CIM) processes.


Company Background

“Visual Studio 2005 provides Portrait customers and partners with a powerful, fl exible, yet familiar integrated environment.”

Tim ShawChief Technical Offi cer

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

Portrait Foundation

Financial Services

May 2006

P 54

54

Q55

55

Quantiv

Quantiv has worked in the fi eld of business process engines, application frameworks, and software factories for many years. It has used Microsoft SQL Server for transaction processing, reporting, and metadata storage since Microsoft SQL Server version 4.2. Today, mission-critical applications produced with Quantiv technology run 24-hours a day, seven-days-a-week in some of the U.K.’s most complex businesses.

Based on Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, Quantiv’s Software Factory supports fast and safe delivery of powerful, easy-to-change, enterprise-scale business applications within predictable timescales and budgets. At its heart is a powerful application framework—a re-usable application that is specialised to make custom-built applications using fully pluggable behaviour, rules, and user and systems interfaces. The ISV used the improvements in Microsoft ASP .NET 2.0 to signifi cantly enhance the user interface framework portions of the product.


Company Background

“Visual Studio 2005 has given us the opportunity to signifi cantly enhance the capabilities of our user interface frameworks.”

Steve BakerTechnical Director

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

Quantiv

Horizontal

November 2005

Q 56

56

R57

57

Realise Systems

Realise Systems is an IT solutions company, which combines innovation with enterprise-level quality. The company develops and supports software that increases the potential of its customers’ workforce.

Employees hold the key to business cost reduction and revenue generation. Capturing employee ideas, the Web-based continuous improvement tool provides employees with a transparent view of their idea and its progress, and managers with a simple tool for evaluating and progressing ideas. By offering targeted idea campaigns, the tool captures better quality, more-focused ideas than traditional suggestion box schemes. By utilising Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and the Templates and Master Pages within Microsoft ASP .NET 2.0, it can customise the application to each customer more easily.


Company Background

Red Gate Software

Red Gate Software makes tools for Microsoft developers, testers, and database administrators (DBAs). We strive for simplicity in every area of our business: our products, the way we interact with our customers, and the way we structure ourselves. The company’s product line includes tools for comparing, synchronising, packaging, backing up, recovering Microsoft SQL Server databases, and profi ling and load testing Microsoft .NET applications. Red Gate is a Microsoft Certifi ed Partner, a Microsoft Visual Studio industry partner (VSIP), and a Microsoft Gold Visual Studio .NET launch partner.

ANTS Profi ler is a tool for code and memory profi ling .NET applications. It quickly and easily pinpoints performance bottlenecks and profi les nearly all .NET applications, including Microsoft ASP .NET Web applications and COM+ applications. ANTS Profi ler records the frequency and time spent in each line of code, as users are running an application. A summary shows the slowest code and methods, helping ensure the quick optimisation of applications. Developing with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 helped make on-time delivery a fully achievable target.


Company Background

“The Web part controls mean we can integrate our application into corporate intranets with ease. And the developer assisting tools within Visual Studio 2005 means we can easily build processes.”

Dominic MaddenChief Technical Offi cer

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

Continuous Improvement

Horizontal

May 2006

“We have been extremely impressed with Visual Studio 2005. It has enabled us to deliver a major upgrade in double-quick time.”

Neil DavidsonTechnical Director

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

ANTS Profi ler

Horizontal

November 2005

REDtechnology.com

R 58

Formed in 1996, REDtechnology.com is one of the U.K.’s leading developers of Web sites and e-commerce systems. The company delivers Web systems that improve business effi ciency, generate enquiries, and increase sales, and offers a number of complementary services including around-the-clock hosting, Web marketing, and reporting capabilities to medium-sized enterprises across a diverse range of market sectors.

ConductIT is a framework for creating and maintaining Web sites. It is targeted at sales and marketing departments responsible for converting Web traffi c into business leads and/or online transactions. ConductIT is differentiated from mid-market Web content management (WCM) systems because it will be developed using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and provides integrated e-commerce and Web marketing functionality out of the box.


58

Company Background

“The ability to pre-compile our Web applications using Visual Studio 2005 will create a better user experience.”

Rob WestTechnical Architect

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

ConductIT

Horizontal

May 2006

S59

59

ScreenFusion

ScreenFusion is a technology company providing digital visual messaging (DVM) solutions to corporate communications, business, retail, leisure, and learning organisations. DVM Express is a system that delivers a continuous fl ow of high-impact multimedia content to digital screens. It is a powerful and cost-effective way to inform and infl uence your target audience. Content can be created and updated quickly and easily across multiple venues. ScreenFusion DVM provides organisations with more effective communication, increased revenues, cost savings, effi ciency, and fl exibility.

The DVM Express solution ensures that customers can easily manage the delivery of timely multimedia content and information to staff and visitors, either centrally or locally. By using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 with its great feature set and built-in tools, the development team can deliver new features more quickly than ever before to the customer base. Existing skills are leveraged as the new features of Visual Studio 2005 and the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 are used within the product range.


Company Background

Select Software U.K.

Select Software is a leading supplier of human resources (HR) software designed for medium to large organisations. We provide software, implementation services, and support directly to our customers throughout the U.K.

Select Software’s Online Recruitment module helps customers to publish vacancies directly from their HR system onto the Web and accept applications online. Applicants are able to view the progress of the job application(s) at any time and can update their CVs and other details as required. The software uses the latest features of Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 to improve the user experience and maximise ease of use.


Company Background

“The development team, which made Visual Studio 2005 the strategic development tool for the DVM Express project, has reaped the rewards of using a world-class, integrated development environment.”

Nigel PriceTechnical Director

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

DVM Express

Digital Visual Messaging

May 2006

“Additional built-in tools and techniques such as Wizard and Tab controls in Visual Studio 2005 meant we were able to deliver the application in double quick time.”

Melissa ConstantSoftware Developer

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

SelectHR Online Recruitment

Horizontal

November 2005

Stardraw.com

S 60

Since 1995, Stardraw.com has been a leading provider of software solutions to the entertainment technology sector, particularly the audio-visual and lighting industries. It offers an award-winning range of innovative, powerful applications and also develops original equipment manufacturer (OEM) software solutions for corporate customers. With offi ces in London and New York, regional partners, and an installed customer base spanning 68 countries, Stardraw.com delivers leading-edge solutions that exploit the very latest in software technologies.

Stardraw Control offers a new approach to controlling systems containing disparate products from various suppliers. It overcomes reliance on closed-architecture control systems by offering a software-based, unifi ed framework that can control any type of remotely-controllable equipment using any protocol. Stardraw Control lets you create customised control interfaces without writing a single line of code, and compiles them as standalone .EXEs. Development within Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 means that Stardraw Control and the applications it generates use 100 per cent managed code.


60

Company Background

“The Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 ensures we can produce applications that use 100 per cent managed code, exclusively. This was due to the addition of internal support for serial port instructions.”

David SnippChief Executive Offi cer

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

Stardraw Control

Media & Entertainment

November 2005

Streatley Software Solutions

Streatley Software Solutions is a Microsoft Certifi ed Partner, whose systems are available worldwide. It has a long history of developing, delivering, and supporting fully-integrated niche market business software for process manufacturing (dataEssence) and contract catering (caterLyst). The company is fully committed to integrating its solutions with Microsoft Business Solutions–Great Plains. Streatley delivers real added-value solutions, built on and using key Microsoft technologies.

caterLyst is an integrated solution for contract catering companies that covers the needs of both the units and head offi ce. caterLyst, which can be integrated with a variety of mainstream accounting systems, includes a number of modules. These cover trading accounts, head offi ce reporting, accounts integration and updating, online unit data entry and reporting, staff management, and time recording. The solution leverages Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 to deliver the performance and fl exibility that a modern contract caterer demands.


Company Background

“The Visual Studio 2005 development system means that we can develop and deliver leading-edge business solutions that help our customers to achieve their business goals.”

Anton SzklarekDirector

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

caterLyst

Contract Catering

May 2006

S61

61

Systems Union Group

Systems Union Group provides a comprehensive portfolio of fi nancial and performance management solutions to more than 50,000 customer sites in 194 countries. The group comprises SunSystems, MIS, Vision, Pegasus, REDtechnology.com, ncSoft, and Foundation Systems. Its solutions improve an organisation’s ability to produce, consolidate, analyse, and report fi nancial and wider management information in a unifi ed way while ensuring a proactive approach to crucial budgeting, planning, and forecasting processes.

SunSystems is a uniquely fl exible fi nancial and performance management solution that ensures organisations can capture, generate, report, and analyse fi nancial and operational data. SunSystems includes automated, multi-currency transactional processing and reporting in addition to compliance with global regulatory and taxation requirements. Developing with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 allowed the ISV to make use of the rich technology stack available on the .NET Framework and integrate it with Microsoft SQL Server 2005.


Company Background

“Using Visual Studio 2005 means we can leverage SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services, which gives us a big head start in our development.”

Lee StokesChief Technical Architect

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

SunSystems

Global software solution provider

May 2006

S 62

62

T63

63

The GL Company

The GL Company specialises in the design and implementation of fi nancial reporting systems, currently over the JD Edwards enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Our specialist applications and portals deliver real-time reporting solutions that change the way users work with data. More than 140 clients worldwide are benefi ting from our leading-edge technology.

The Really Real Time Inquiry Suite is a true real-time inquiry, consolidation, and reporting system for JD Edwards World and EnterpriseOne. Without staging data, it allows management accountants to analyse data in their ERP system in real-time to make informed business decisions. In addition, by helping users to fi nd accounting discrepancies fast, it helps them to close their books at month end, and aids compliance with Sarbanes Oxley. The application was developed using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and takes advantage of the features of the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0.


Company Background

True Clarity

True Clarity, launched in 2002, aims to use Internet technologies to save its clients time and money. The company has a highly committed, skilled, and experienced team that develops fi nancial and management support solutions for a wide range of clients. Clients include the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, Eduserv Chest, Adam Matthew Publications, Stanley Gibbons, Mercer Oliver Wyman, Artyfarty, Nobok, The Response Team, and London Central Portfolio.

True Clarity’s Framework is a proven operational application that allows users to develop complex business models that support key operations. True Clarity believes that delivering fast and reliable information retrieval and combining access with ease of navigation is vital for an integrated solution. Originally developed using Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003, the framework has an extremely modular structure. By taking advantage of the new tools in Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, True Clarity can increase the size of development teams while reducing development time.


Company Background

“Moving to Visual Studio 2005 means we can concentrate on what we do best, secure in the knowledge that it is underpinned by the solid foundation of the .NET Framework.”

Daniel GrahamIT Director

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

Really Real Time Inquiry Suite

Financial Services

November 2005

“Visual Studio 2005 means we can work with larger development teams in a more controlled and robust environment.”

Paul BackwellTechnical Director

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

True Clarity Framework 2006


May 2006

T 64

64

U65

65

University of Paisley

Founded in 1897 to provide vocational courses, the University of Paisley began offering degree studies in the early 1900s and matured to University status in 1992. Today, the university has an enviable reputation for innovation and excellence, and is widening the provision of higher education in the west and south-west of Scotland with its additional campuses in Ayr and Dumfries. Currently it has around 1,300 staff guiding more than 10,000 students in more than 100 degree courses.

Pyrrho is a rigorously developed relational database management system that can run on small computers and mobile phones, but also scale up for large enterprise uses. It is built on the Microsoft .NET Framework and Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and can run without change in many environments, leveraging the extensive class library of the framework. Pyrrho is most suited to data that includes a regular stream of new information that is kept indefi nitely such as customer data, orders, or accounting transactions. It has an enhanced authorisation model and built-in auditing facilities.


Company Background

Unlimitas

Unlimitas was formed in 2005 to offer affordable bespoke software solutions, predominantly developed using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0. These solutions are focused on the small to medium enterprise (SME) sector, in particular businesses which were using legacy software and want to move on to the latest .NET platform. Though only a start-up, the company employs four people and is currently developing several products and Web sites for wider use.

FoxSuite 4 is an estimation system developed specifi cally for steel specialists Barrett Steel Buildings. It supersedes its existing Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 systems, offering improved speed, scalability, and a much enhanced and professional-looking user interface. Visual Studio 2005 takes away the drudgery of sculpting Microsoft Offi ce 2003-style applications, and the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 provides many useful and sophisticated components that reduce the overall development time. In particular, combining managed Direct3D with Windows Forms has really brought FoxSuite 4 to life.


Company Background

“Visual Studio 2005 provides such excellent productivity and debugging assistance that it is practical for one person to write a complete database management system (DBMS).”

Professor Malcolm CroweUniversity of Paisley

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

cis.paisley.ac.uk/crow-ci0/[email protected]

Pyrrho Database Management System

Education

November 2005

“With Visual Studio 2005 we’re delivering cutting edge, great-looking applications in half the time our clients expect.”

Mark PointonTechnical Director

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

FoxSuite 4


May 2006

U 66

66

V67

67

Visualfi les

Visualfi les provides innovative business tools to help professionals become more effective and more profi table. Visualfi les creates timely solutions to today’s problems that help clients to enhance and maintain their business processes as demands change. These solutions are based on a tool set combining knowledge and document management with workfl ow, system integration, and domain experience. The company also comprises a number of specialist divisions and joint ventures.

Manila is an application that ensures professional service organisations, such as law fi rms, can manage risk, compliance, productivity, and quality. While essentially a development environment based around Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, Manila is supplied with an extensive framework giving a high degree of functionality and integration with core business applications as standard. Developers can rapidly extend and customise this framework or quickly develop entirely new applications. It also supports Microsoft SQL Server 2005.


Company Background

“Using Visual Studio 2005 has helped us launch Manila at the forefront of .NET technology with all the benefi ts of the latest Microsoft developments.”

Neil EwinChairman

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

www.visualfi les.comsales.info@visualfi les.com

Manila


November 2005

V 68

68

W69

69

WorkPlace Systems

WorkPlace Systems, which has a turnover of around £10 million (U.S.$17.4m), is a leading worldwide supplier of workforce management solutions. Modules include labour budgeting, staff scheduling, time and attendance, and performance management. The solutions reduce labour costs and improve customer service levels across a wide range of sectors. The application is written in Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and delivered in a single Microsoft SQL Server instance, accessed via a Web browser/kiosk. WorkPlace Systems has 110 staff, 40 per cent of whom focus on research and development (R&D).

ChangePlanner calculates optimum shifts to be worked for a typical week. It plans peak periods of work, ensuring that the right types of contracts are recruited, and models alternative scenarios ranging from small impact changes in working hours through to a redefi nition of full-time/part-time mix. Improvement to service levels and effectiveness is guaranteed, normally at reduced labour cost with increased employee satisfaction. Visual Studio 2005 helped the ISV deliver to market faster and with more confi dence than with previous development projects.


Company Background

“Using Visual Studio 2005 meant that we could create ChangePlanner faster than ever before. We were able to deliver a robust application in a large U.K. retailer, which is already delivering signifi cant value.”

Ian MillsDevelopment Director

Contact details

Application

Industry focus

Ready

[email protected]

ChangePlanner

Retail & Hospitality

November 2005

70

70

71

71


Technology Matrix

Technologies Used in the ApplicationOrganisation

.NET

Fram

ewor

k 2.0

ASP

.NET

2.0

Mob

ile D

evelo

pmen

t

Visu

al Ba

sic 6.

0 Upg

rade

Visu

al St

udio

Tool

s for

Offi

ce

Visu

al St

udio

Team

Syste

m

Win

dows

Form

s 2.0

72

72

Alert Technologies ● ● ●

Alfred McAlpine ● ● ●

Alpha Meridian ● ●

Andy Wigley Computing ● ● ● ● ●

Anglo Europe Computer Systems ● ● ● ●

Business Logic Systems ● ● ● ●

Capgemini ● ● ●

Cintra Corporation U.K. ● ● ●

Citadel Associates ●

Consonica ● ●

Contenlo ● ● ●

Cronus Consultancy ● ●

DPR Consulting ● ● ●

Draig Technology ● ● ● ●

EIBS ● ●

Entropy International ● ● ● ●

Evoke Systems ● ● ●

Extranet Builders ● ● ●

Faber Systems ●

fl yingSPARK – Wireless Field Service ●

fl yingSPARK – Wireless Intelligence Layer ●

Information Systems Associates ● ● ● ● ●

Insights Learning and Development ●

IRIS Software ● ● ●

ITDP Solutions ● ● ●

Jontek ● ●

Jump Media ● ● ●

Lakeview Computers ● ● ●

.NET

Fram

ewor

k 2.0

ASP

.NET

2.0

Mob

ile D

evelo

pmen

t

Visu

al Ba

sic 6.

0 Upg

rade

Visu

al St

udio

Tool

s for

Offi

ce

Visu

al St

udio

Team

Syste

m

Win

dows

Form

s 2.0

Technologies Used in the ApplicationOrganisation

73

73

Laserform International ● ● ● ●

Link HR Systems ● ● ● ●

m35 ● ● ● ●

MBR IT Solutions – Boot FX ● ● ●MBR IT Solutions – Sales Sourcerer ● ●

Meridio ●

Mountain Software ● ●

MSS ● ● ● ● ●

o2olap ● ●

Occam Systems ● ● ● ●

Onesteptechnology ● ●

Portrait Software ● ● ●

Quantiv ● ● ●

Realise Systems ● ●

Red Gate Software ● ●

REDtechnology.com ● ● ●

ScreenFusion ● ● ● ●

Select Software U.K. ● ●

Stardraw.com ● ● ● ●

Streatley Software Solutions ● ● ●

Systems Union Group ● ● ●

The GL Company ● ●

True Clarity ● ● ● ● ●

University of Paisley ● ● ●

Unlimitas ● ●

Visualfi les ● ● ●

WorkPlace Systems ● ● ●

74

74

75

75

© 2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

This directory is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Microsoft, ADO, ASP .NET, Excel, .NET, .NET Framework, SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2005, Visual Basic 6.0, Visual C#, Visual Studio 6.0, Visual Studio 2005, Windows, Windows Mobile, and Word 2003 are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Document published November, 2005.

Documents

U.K. Readiness Guide - download.microsoft.comdownload.microsoft.com/...VS05_ISV_Readiness_Guide.pdf · U.K. Readiness Guide 50 Ready-to-Use ISV Solutions Developed Using ... and does