Building better Microsoft solutions

SSW can help you leverage your investment in technology to capitalise on your own competitive advantages. Our knowledge and expertise with market leading technology allows us to develop a tailored solution to your business requirements and thus allow you to focus on your own core competencies. Our goal is to develop flexible and scalable solutions aimed at achieving your objectives.

With a proven track record of implementing technology solutions ranging from Architecture and Design Consulting to Database Development and Business Intelligence Solutions. SSW works along side you to leverage the latest technological advances to reduce costs, improve processes, and take advantage of new business every step of the way.

Based upon years of experience working closely with Microsoft, SSW software development services utilise the best available technologies to deliver functional, value-adding software - faster.

Web Development

Undoubtedly the Internet has made its greatest impact on how we see business today. We are now a global economy competing on a global scale. Our web development experience spans from developing static websites to browser based web solutions which provide order processing, reporting and analysis and database connectivity.

Figure: SSW can give your business a professional presence in the online world

Content Management System

A content management system (CMS) is critical to the success of almost every website and intranet, and yet many organizations are not familiar with this technology. It supports the creation, management, distribution, publishing, and discovery of corporate information.

It covers the complete lifecycle of the pages on your site, from providing simple tools to create the content, through to publishing, and finally to archiving. It also provides the ability to manage the structure of the site, the appearance of the published pages, and the navigation provided to the users. DotNetNuke and Sharepoint Development: The leading CMS Solutions

Windows and Rich Client Development

The increasing complexity of business processes and transactions has seen a strain placed on generic software applications. Generic software packages though useful to the mainstream, often don't deliver what you need most. In these cases, using software that only does half the job is costing your organization time and money.

Windows, or Rich Client development, means the application custom developed to your specifications and is distributed and deployed onto every desktop requiring the software.

SSW has an extensive history in Windows and Rich Client development with more than a decade of in house software development experience. See a full list of our products.

Figure: Example of a Winform application

Figure: Example of an MS Access based application - See more Access UI examples

Book a Scrum Master

SSW offers trained Scrum Masters to oversee the production of your next project. Certified by Scrum.org, our Scrum masters are qualified to manage communication between you and your team, streamline the development process and are trained to recognise dangerous waters ahead of time and offer solutions around them.

Ensure your project's smooth success by booking an SSW Scrum Master.

Technology

Using the right technology is imperative to ensure your solution continues to deliver competitive advantages into the future.
Focusing on Microsoft .NET technologies allows SSW to attain the level of expertise required to build the best possible solutions for its clients. With ground-breaking experience in .NET SSW can boast delivery of the first major commercial ASP .NET solution in Australia.

The advantages of .NET:

• Reduced code development and maintenance time
• Avoidance of "DLL Hell" and associated Visual Basic Distribution issues
• Improved Performance in C#, VB.NET and ASP.NET (now compiled rather than interpreted)
• Object orientation and support for inheritance
• Structured environment for web site creation
• Improved support for Web Services and SOAP
• Improved reporting for the Web (Crystal Reports is the reporting engine for the .NET environment)
• Enhanced development tools (Visual Studio.NET)
• COM features such as early binding and true interface based programming
• Allows the creation of free threaded .NET components

Even entrenched Java guys are recommending .NET and C#

Microsoft .NET 3.0 Development

.NET Framework 3.0, formerly called WinFX, includes a new set of managed code APIs that are an integral part of the upcoming Windows Vista and Windows Server "Longhorn" operating systems. It is also available for Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003 as a download. There are no major architectural changes included with this release.

.NET Framework 3.0 consists of four major new components:

• Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), formerly code-named Avalon; a new user interface subsystem and API based on XML and vector graphics, which will make use of 3D computer graphics hardware and Direct3D technologies.
• Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), formerly code-named Indigo; a service-oriented messaging system which allows programs to interoperate locally or remotely similar to web services.
• Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) allows for building of task automation and integrated transactions using workflows.
• Windows CardSpace (WCS), formerly code-named InfoCard; a software component which securely stores a person's digital identities and provides a unified interface for choosing the identity for a particular transaction, such as logging in to a website.

SSW uses .NET 3.0 as our preferred development environment for web, Windows or rich client projects.

Integrated Business Systems

With experience across a range of industries, our technical expertise is matched with our ability to understand your business and deliver first-class solutions tailored to your needs. We have developed end to end business systems that have required:

• Database integration
• Web development and e-Commerce solutions
• Time-billing and project management systems
• Sales, purchase and product management systems
• Financial management systems
• Marketing and contact management, integrated with Exchange Server
• Order and tracking systems
• Online catalogues and shopping carts
• Call-centre tracking systems
• Import/Export functions

Microsoft Speech Server Solutions

The Support for both telephony (voice-only) and multimodal (voice/visual) applications has increased significantly since the arrival of Microsoft Speech Server. With the use of the Speech Application SDK (SASDK), speech-enabled applications can easily integrate with the web-based programming model that Microsoft provides.

Some companies can be concerned about unnecessary functionality that may not currently be needed as part of the short term goals for their applications; however, the long term stability in getting into MSS can benefit companies in many ways regarding telephony systems. It's worthy to note that MSS significantly reduces the development time that is required to build and deploy telephony and multimodal applications. Development time can be very expensive; but the fact that MSS is built-in with seamless integration with the Visual Studio.NET development environment will save the time in the initial preparations that any developer would require to setup their customer's product.

Since the Standard Edition of MSS only costs US$7,999 (AU10,338), if you were to compare this to actual development time, this is only about 4 days for 2 developers. Needless to say, it would take a lot longer to set up a customised telephony system built from the ground up.

MSS was designed for extensibility to ensure that it can provide a big benefit to any telephony application's future development. Support and upgrade costs would be minimal for any future features, since companies would already have a registered copy of MSS, and hence would receive hot fixes and patches regularly.

The solution we provide to develop telephony applications using the Speech Application SDK provides the following:

• Use of Visual Studio .NET Web Applications ASP.NET Speech Controls
• A rich voice mode grammar library
• Speech development tools
• Debugging tools
• Log analysis tools
• Use of the Speech Application Language Tags (SALT) standard, which has Markup tags that work effectively with HTML, XHTML etc.

With these facilities, we can provide the following types of customized solutions:

• Phone Menu Systems
• Voice-Enabled Passwords
• Video Conferencing
• Voice Chat

More information about SSW's solution to Telephony Systems.

Management

With an emphasis on clear communication, SSW provides a level of management specific for your project. Without overloading projects with excessive top heavy non-productivity, SSW's Development Method ensures the correct resources are allocated at the right time.

Mobile Application Development

For mobile email and messaging, order validation and other data entry tasks, let a mobile application help your work force realise true business potential while on the move. Deliver robust, scalable and secure solutions, founded on reliable Microsoft .NET technology to ensure your business is not compromised.

A mobile application is software that sits on any mobile device, such as a PDA or a Mobile phone. There is a huge variety of software tools and devices available. The application should allow you to synchronise with Outlook or SQL Server.

If you have people on the move, a mobile application will help your organization. Your sales force member needs stock quantities, or contact details, or even account status reports on the go, can access secure information quickly.

Business Intelligence

Your organization's advantage lies in how your business manages its information. Valuable customer and business data often lies hidden to those people that need it most like decision makers.

Business Intelligence involves the transformation of data into knowledge empowering thus empowering decision makers to make the right choices. Our approach to business intelligence is to develop solutions with the organizational goals and end users in mind.

We have a solid history of developing solutions that have empowered decision makers with the information necessary to make big decisions using hard facts. Our previous clients have realised that managing their organization's data effectively has unlocked a wealth of information previously hidden from their decision makers.

Outsourcing

IT outsourcing is one way of allowing companies to focus on their core-business in a changing environment. With access to the highest levels of expertise, SSW staff can easily integrate into your company, working alongside your staff, bringing expert advice and methods to streamline your IT processes.

Networking Infrastructure

For SME's SSW can configure your network for Mail, documenting sharing and firewal security.

Backup

Almost all businesses have experienced a loss of valuable data. The irony is that action is usually taken when the data has already been lost. SSW can help you avoid losing valuable business data through its expertise in implementing backup solutions.

Skills

Services

• Windows Forms (VB .NET/C#)
• Web Forms (ASPX)
• SQL Server/Access
• Exchange Server
• Sharepoint Portal
• Windows 2003 Server
• Office (Smart-tags and Add-ins)
• Office 2007

Supplementary Services

• SQL Server Notification Services
• SQL Server Analysis Services
• Crystal Reports
• Reporting Services
• ISA Server

Supported Legacy Technologies

• ASP
• VB
• VBA

Windows 7 deployment from Small Business to Large Enterprises

• SMS - Wan friendly
• WDS - Smaller Enterprises
• DVD - for a few computers (aka Sneaker Net)

Read the Taking Advantage of Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 for Developing and Maintaining .NET 1.1 and 2.0 Applications in Microsoft Windows Vista whitepaper

Design

Creativity, Innovation, Vision...

key elements in increasing the effectiveness and popularity of your website

A well designed web site can do wonders for your corporate image and sales.
At SSW, our goal is to deliver practical, creative and unique web site solutions:

• Web Design and Development
• Web Usability and Accessibility
• Banner Advertisement and Website Advertisement
• Email Newsletters
• Electronic Presentations

To find out how SSW can help design your website, please call +61 2 9953 3000 or email us.

Figure: SSW develop creative solutions