Our consultants have played a significant role on a variety of projects. The following are some representative examples.
Client domain: Parenting support and guidance
Project focus: New mobile device application, revenue models
Consulting Services: Idea and business model refinement, app design/flow brainstorming, prototyping
Client approached us about building a new mobile device application, as the initial step in a broader business plan to offer and elicit similar material via various forms of digital multimedia. Prototyping included both native (iOS) and cross-platform approaches to help client refine look-and-feel preferences given the various inherent tradeoffs.
Technologies / Tools: Objective-C, iOS SDK, Xcode 4, Apache, PHP, Slim framework, MySql, Cordova/Phonegap, Javascript, Backbone/Underscore
Client domain: Intellectual property utilization and compensation, worldwide
Project focus: Core business information system, feeding/consuming systems
Consulting Services: C-level advising and strategizing, framework design and development, functional prototyping, team participation, interim project and outsource vendor management, process improvement
Client needed to replace aging core business information system as well as some surrounding applications to address company-wide business territorial expansion and operational cost reduction goals. In addition to temporarily increasing team capacity, client enlisted the help of resources outside IT group to bring to bear ideas unencumbered by years of history with the existing system or internal political complications, and possessing complementary expertise.
Technologies / Tools: .NET, C#, Microsoft “foundation” technologies (WPF, WF, WCF, WCF Data Services), RDF/SPARQL, Data Services/OData, Entity Framework, ASP.NET MVC, HTML, Javascript, JQuery, JSON, SQL Server, VS Unit Test Framework
Client domain: Audio content selection and delivery
Project focus: New software product
Consulting Services: System architecture, functional prototyping, regular feedback to help clarify and prioritize product requirements, outsource vendor and design evaluation
Client was in the process of gaining funding for a new software product idea and needed to demonstrate feasibility, refine the concept and feature prioritization, and have a solid foundation from which to get to market as quickly as possible. The prototype needed to balance coherent architecture with quick feature adjustment and demonstration, all while keeping costs contained. Client subsequently began outsourcing productization of the product and needed help evaluating candidate vendor proposals, reviewing design specifications and transferring knowledge learned during prototyping phase.
Technologies / Tools: Java, JSP, Web Services (Apache Axis2/Java), RMI, Apache Derby / SQL, SWT, FFMPEG, Eclipse, JUnit
Client domain: Laser based micro-engineering solutions for factory automation
Project focus: New product accuracy; existing product accuracy, UI flow and maintainability improvements
Consulting Services: Application module and framework development, team participation (incl. technical lead role), mentoring, interop/porting
On several projects (in turn), client needed a software engineer capable of complex programming as well as effective communication, technical leadership and aligning with modern design patterns. Technical work included developing a framework for calibrating multiple hardware-motion coordinate systems, improving alignment accuracy, implementing data persistence, developing a hardware control state machine and converting an 8 year old system to C#/.NET.
Technologies / Tools: .NET, C#, NUnit, C/C++, Managed Extensions, MFC
Client domain: Health and fitness products
Project focus: Replacement of most major IT systems
Consulting Services: Architecture review/advice, development of custom integration software, team participation as technical lead, training, team evaluation
Technologies / Tools: .NET, C#, Sql Server, COM+ (distributed transactions), VB6
Client domain: Stock trading
Consulting Services: IT staff training
Co-wrote and delivered a 100-slide training presentation about enterprise computing using Internet and Java technologies. This presentation covered distributed computing architectures, application servers, web technologies (e.g. HTTP protocol, HTML, CSS, Javascript, XML/XSL, SOAP/WSDL), and Java including the JVM, SE platform, EE platform, applets, servlets, JSP and RMI.
Client domain: Digital media processing, management and storage
Project focus: Make core software technology available as a service
Consulting Services: Service interface design, application development
Technologies / Tools: Java, EJB, JSP, Swing