Insights success the 10 best performing software solution providers dec 2017

www.insightssuccess.com December 2017

The way of business solutions

Editorial

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e the humans of 20th century is completely dependent on software to execute various tasks. To execute these tasks software needs to be completely free from any error or glitches. However, software development and delivery teams across the planet continue to dismiss the potential of testing teams. QA personnel are involved in the development process only toward the end of a sprint, which eventually results to frantic debugging and the release of products that may not perform as good as they potentially could. However, integrating software testing early on in the software development and delivery process have few serious benefits.

Software Testing and its Early Integration

When it comes to software testing, it is not merely a task, but an approach. Most of the time a tester critically evaluates the application under test in various ways that a developer may not think about. This is mainly because testers, over the years, learn to identify where logical errors are most likely to occur. They test the AUT for both business needs and end user expectations. One must leverage a tester’s intuition to comprehensively test the AUT. However, no amount of documentation can completely keep track of all the changes being made to the AUT along the way, in terms of user expectations, business needs, client requirements, developers’ inputs, and more. This creates confusion among testers and hinders the effectiveness of their work as they must work with outdated documentation, and as a result changed functionalities are logged as errors. A week before the release date, testers will report 150 bugs that strongly influence ship/no-ship decisions, thereby jeopardizing the release and developers are forced to address the most critical of bugs, while letting low priority ones flow through the cracks, which ultimately affects user experience. And that is undesirable, especially in a world of fast and loud user reviews. Testers are also the first set of end users. In exploring the AUT, they examine it from an end user’s perspective and are therefore rich sources of feedback regarding whether or not the application performs the way it is expected to. Such experiential feedback helps strengthen product design and architecture, resulting in a more reliable product.

Kaustav Roy

Embracing the changes in Software Solutions Industry

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urrently the digital transformation is changing the complete outlook of the Software Industry and companies are looking beyond the dawn, while improving existing business processes and creating new business opportunities. Also, software companies are continually on the leading-edge, considering innovative and unconventional ways to meet the demands of savvy consumers in this- ever changing digitally connected world.

However, to meet and exceed the requirements of consumers, the need for a genuine and trustworthy solution provider with world class services and products is enormous. Here in this issue of our magazine, we have shortlisted, “The 10 Best Performing Software Solution Providers, 2017”, which are providing world class and distinguished solutions to its clients.

Our cover story is of TestPoint, assures technology for re-platforming, solution upgrades and modernization with confidence of real-time decision making, IT cost optimization, visibility to quality and alignment to strategic business outcomes.

Apart from the cover story, we have also shortlisted BriteCore for providing an enterprise-level insurance processing suite. Built from the ground up using the latest in modern technology, BriteCore combines core, data, and digital solutions into a single platform; Eurostop, which has over 25 years’ experience providing Stock Control software and EPOS systems for Fashion, Footwear, Jewellery, Apparel and Lifestyle retailers; ISU Corp, which is a high-tech company specializing in Software Architecture, Development, Project Management and Software User Interface Design; Lansweeper, for providing a software package that is being used worldwide by IT professionals in organizations of all sizes to manage their entire IT network; QualiTest Group, for QA and software testing, backed up with business assurance and in-house supportive tool development; Wituners, which develops Wi-Fi optimization software that tunes business wireless networks in seconds.

Happy Reading.

Cover Story

Testing Software Efficiently Since Inception

08 CXO Standpoint Expert’s Insight Information Technology Revolution

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Executive’s Voice

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The way of IOT’s , Smart Grid, Smart citie’s Future goes through Technology and Network convergence

Article Industry Insider

Editor’s Pick

Switching Software as a Service -An Investment that can pay Dividends

Trends in Transport : Software Solution Industry you must look before investing

Key rends that are driving transformation in SAAS

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Software Trend

BriteCore

Eurostop

A Leading Provider of Web-Based Technology

Empowering Retailers with EPOS and Stock Control Software

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ISU Corp A High-tech Custom Software Solutions Company that Goes Extra Mile to Ensure Client Satisfaction

Lansweeper

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WiTuners

QUALITEST GROUP Helping Clients Mitigate Risks of Defective Software

Helping Organizations to Manage IT Networks Reliably

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Providing Cost-Effective WLAN Software Suite for Optimal Performance

Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal Senior Editor Ariana Lawrence Managing Editor Kaustav Roy Co-Editors Sourav Mukherjee David Smith Stephanie Andrews Visualiser David King Art & Design Director Amol Kamble Co-designer Alex Noel Picture Editor Tejas Kulkarni Art Editor Aparna Vanzul Business Development Manager Mike Thomas Nick Adams Marketing Manager Philip Walker Business Development Executives Andy, David, Peter, Kevin, John, Brian Research Analyst Jennifer Circulation Manager Robert Database Management Steve Technology Consultant Swapnil Patil sales@insightssuccess.com

December, 2017 Corporate Ofces: Insights Success Media Tech LLC 555 Metro Place North, Suite 100, Dublin, OH 43017, United States Phone - (614)-602-1754 Email: info@insightssuccess.com For Subscription: Visit www.insightssuccess.com

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estpoint is a leader in delivering Enterprise Quality Assurance and Software Testing services, driving efficiency, governance and speed to market as a vantage point for its customers utilizing its Vansah QA & VSAM (Synthetic Application Performance & End User Experience Monitoring) technology platform. The organization assures technology for re-platforming, solution upgrades and modernization with confidence of real-time decision making, IT cost optimization and visibility to quality and alignment to strategic business outcomes.

Well Known Leaders For the past ten years Testpoint has been led ably by Fadi Hawli, CEO and Co-founder, and Hala Talanoa, Principal and Co-founder. Fadi is a successful and passionate Australian technology entrepreneur with a strong focus on research and development. Graduating with a degree in Software Engineering from the Western Sydney University (WSU) in 1999, he began his career as a Technical Software Consultant specializing in automated testing technologies while working for large international corporations, all the while leading multi-million-dollar project implementations.

Fadi had always had an interest in running business. He started his first online IT Hardware business reseller company, linking large corporations to source their technology procurement needs directly from IT distributors without the middle man.

On the other hand, Hala graduated with a B.Sc. in Computing degree from Western Sydney University, specializing in software testing, with a passion for delivering Tier-1 software systems and solutions across a variety of industry verticals. Hala’s passion for system development and delivering business solutions saw him working for some of the renowned global enterprises across various industry sectors operating out of Australia.

Serving in a Growing Industry According to Testpoint, the software application testing market is expected to steadily grow at a rate of 14 percent by 2021. The key drivers for this growth is the increased demand for automated testing and agile testing services.

The demand for testing services is further expected to grow even further in the coming years mainly due to the transition towards cloud based applications, and the rising need for enterprise mobility requirements by customers.

Some of the main drivers for mobility developments has

been reported to be the need to enable customers to access financial services.

Mainly due to few established international testing vendors who are servicing a large market landscape, it’s very crucial for niche players like Testpoint to disrupt traditional testing methods and services with automation frameworks, tools and industry specific software testing processes to help support and improve testing with innovations necessary to address application testing which comprises of both functional and non-functional services.

When Innovation is the Main Priority Both Fadi Hawli and Hala Talanoa saw a gap in offerings to support continuous automated testing capabilities.

Automation was a challenge for many organizations including testing companies hence the solution which was developed by the founders initially filled a gap in the market and the founders could see that the future would only require more services and solutions to address this need.

Since its inception, Testpoint has always been about innovation, speed to market, and addressing challenges faced by organizations when it comes to adopting the necessary testing within a competitive and continuously changing environment. Testpoint has ensured that its backbone was built on research and development by continuously evolving.

A R&D Based Organization Testpoint has ensured that its backbone was built on research and development by continuously evolving its platform to support organizations with transformation and modernization needs. The demand for automated testing solutions means Testpoint has a solid position in the market by providing technology which addresses major market challenges which companies are no-longer looking to source on their own. The company’s brand will play a significant role in helping it continue to expand its solutions across the market by targeting large corporations and government customers first with its product capability alongside its managed services to deliver the outcomes.

An Organization that is Addressing Major Market Challenges The demand for agile testing with automated testing

solutions means Testpoint has a solid position in the market by providing technology that addresses major market challenges which companies are no longer looking to source on their own. Testpoint will eventually play a significant role in helping organizations to expand its solutions across the market by targeting large corporations and government customers first with its product capability alongside its managed services to deliver the outcomes.

Alongside all these, due to a solid employee retention rate Testpoint is confidant with its future growth and expansion staff will continue to be rewarded to ensure the vision of the company and its success will be supported by a solid platform and team.

Addressing Pain Points and Offered Services Testpoint is such an organization, which is working round the clock to address market pain points such as, Ÿ Speed (time to market, automation, and continuous testing) Ÿ Testing as a Service (Capability and maturity) Ÿ Internal Staff constraints and Skill shortage (increase scalability) Ÿ Quality and Best practice Ÿ Testing coverage Ÿ Cost Optimization Since, its inception at the end of 2007, Testpoint’s solution

was sold to a large number of organizations that required multiple automated tests, which had to be executed across different environments and applications hence needed a solution and testing service to address this challenge. From there on, the organization grew in the first two years by providing automated testing services across large financial organizations selling both product licenses and services.

Later on, in 2011, Testpoint released its first version of Vansah QA a complete online SaaS service for managing testing projects for clients as a service. Testpoint would now be able to manage testing and different testing requirements by using a testing platform which could deliver the capability and governance which would

normally require expensive software licensing and experienced trained individuals to deliver similar projects.

This delivered the confidence necessary to help its customers reduce Test Management license fees with the ability to ramp up on testing requirements simply by subscribing to Vansah and Testpoint to support their testing needs. Now, the organization offers two services and they are, Ÿ

Vansah QA- A testing platform to support automated testing, software delivery and quality control utilizing a SaaS solution which integrates with other technologies to support major programs. The Vansah QA framework also has the advantage of providing a higher level of visibility for testers. It allows the root cause of issues to be identified early in the development process. This has the effect of lowering the risk of errors appearing later in software development. Any issues that occur later in the development process can incur huge costs to remedy and can blow out budgeting and scheduling. Poor visibility can cripple an organizations’ ability to successfully deliver projects. A high level of visibility can also help an organization allocate its digital resources effectively. The Vansah framework will identify any further opportunities where testing can occur and allows IT teams to pinpoint where they can

add real value to software projects. This goes beyond metrics, data and analytics and provides IT teams with the ability to understand where they can improve how software projects are delivered. Having the ability to understand where software gains can be made can provide a source of competitive advantage for your organization. Ÿ

Vansah VSAM- Testpoint’s proprietary enterprise VSAM platform helps businesses attain peak performance for their software throughout the user experience. VSAM is a managed service solution delivered by TestPoint, which provides solutions for

businesses to help them understand and identify end user experience and performance issues earlier in the development cycle and across live production systems.

Live application monitoring enhances the service by monitoring the end-user experience in real time. As a result, by utilising the VSAM platform, Testpoint is helping organizations obtain the best experience and performance of their systems. Testpoint’s VSAM managed service dramatically reduces operational costs and at the same time increases consumer and stakeholder confidence when going to the market with new technologies.

Picture of the Bright Future Testpoint invests in its future through research & development and continuous improvement. This eventually helps to grow the organization profitably, which benefits all its customers and employees. Testpoint has always liked to think big with technology and services offering which delivers superior customer value and company profits.

The organizations’ roadmap is to remain open to change and maintain integrity. Testpoint began by helping customers achieve success and that is always going to be the organizations’ drive by assuring technology for tomorrow and taking that across the globe.

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Company Name

Management

Brief

BrainSell Technologies brainsell.net

James Ward CEO

BrainSell is a leading advisory and technology company that provides companies of all sizes with a competitive advantage that comes from best-of-class business software, services and unbiased advice.

BriteCore britecore.com

Phil Reynolds Co-founder & CEO

BriteCore is an enterprise-level insurance processing suite. Built from the ground up using the latest in modern technology, BriteCore combines core, data, and digital solutions into a single platform.

Epicor Software Corporation epicor.com

Steve Murphy CEO

Epicor is more than a software provider. That’s because it sees software not as an outcome, but as a flexible tool to grow businesses.

Eurostop eurostop.com

Richard Loh Founder & CEO

Eurostop has over 25 years’ experience providing Stock Control software and EPOS systems for Fashion, Footwear, Jewellery, Apparel and Lifestyle retailers.

ISU Corp isucorp.ca

David Mansilla Founder & CEO

ISU Corp is a high-tech company specializing in Software Architecture, Development, Project Management and Software User Interface Design.

Lansweeper lansweeper.com

Bart Maes CEO

Lansweeper is a software package that is being used worldwide

by IT professionals in organizations of all sizes to manage their entire IT network.

Martin Scovell Founder & CEO

MATS provides all the components you need to build, deploy and improve business apps without coding. It’s quick to learn and easy to use, giving you the freedom to create, deploy and improve digital apps faster and cheaper than you ever thought possible.

QualiTest Group qualitestgroup.com

Ayal Zylberman Co-founder

QA and software testing are all that QualiTest does, backed up with business assurance and in-house supportive tool development.

TestPoint testpoint.com.au

Fadi Hawli Founder & CEO

Testpoint assures technology for re-platforming, solution upgrades and modernization with confidence of real-time decision making, IT cost optimization, visibility to quality and alignment to strategic business outcomes.

Wituners wituners.com

Luke Qian Founder

WiTuners develops Wi-Fi optimization software that tunes business wireless networks in seconds.

MatsSoft matssoft.com

Expert’s Insight

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Expert’s Insight

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BriteCore A Leading Provider of Web-Based Technology

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riteCore began its journey in 2009 when a group of six partnered together to build the world’s most advanced property casualty administration system for insurance providers. The organization is focused on three key objectives throughout the development process — customer-centric development, long-term partnership, and ongoing technical innovation. BriteCore is an enterpriselevel insurance processing suite. Built from the ground up using the latest technologies, BriteCore combines core, data, and digital solutions into a single platform. Deployed using the Amazon Web Services cloud, BriteCore is continually updated to guarantee maximum security, efficiency, and durability at scale. Insurance carriers, MGAs, and start-ups rely on BriteCore to increase speed to market, improve competitive position, and support growth.

A Dynamic Leader BriteCore was co-founded by two dynamic cousins Phil Reynolds and Chris Reynolds. Phil is now the CEO of the organization. He holds a certificate in “Leading Change in Complex Organizations” from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and speaks frequently on organizational design and technological innovation for property casualty carriers.

Phil received the “Governor’s Missouri Entrepreneur of the Year” award from Governor Jay Nixon and led IWS to the 288th spot on the Inc. 500 list. He is a frequent presenter at State conventions and serves on the PAMIC Information Technology Committee.

Tackling the Challenges According to the organization, the insurance industry possesses various challenges for technology providers.

Over the last eight years, BriteCore has invested time and money into building powerful, web-based solutions that support the complex, conservative, and non-technical nature of insurance. Ÿ Complex: Standard insurers are regulated at the state level while excess and surplus lines companies are barely regulated at all. This leads to a huge degree of fragmentation that is challenging for technology firms to support. Building deep insurance expertise within BriteCores’ staff required a much slower initial growth arc than many entrepreneurs anticipate. However, once overcome, this barrier works to insulate the organization from its competitors.

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Conservative: The same conservative approach that created current technology opportunities also creates a sales barrier for new technology vendors. Sales cycles range from 6 months to 5 years and require personal relationship investment. BriteCore has spent many years speaking, volunteering, serving on boards, and writing articles to build trust in the industry and establish themselves as domain. Ÿ Non-Technical: Despite core reliance on automation and data analysis, a surprising number of insurance companies have little internal IT or engineering Ÿ

We are excited about insurance technology and focus heavily on usability, web standards, cloud computing, continuous integration, and open-source software development.

We love what we do and hope you do too.

expertise. BriteCore transforms companies by ensuring investments are made in project management, change management, and business analysis.

When Patient and Deliberate Approach Works Like a Charm BriteCore has reached all of its financial and product goals over the last 7 years of production leading to a consistent record of success. The organization is patient and deliberate in its approach to insurance software, mainly focusing on: Ÿ Cloud-Based SaaS: BriteCore believes that SaaS is quickly gaining popularity among various financial institutions because it replaces variable CapEx expenditure with a predictable monthly OpEx subscription. As a platform service provider, BriteCore |December 2017|

Phil Reynolds Co-founder & CEO

aggregates resources and spreads the value of proposition among its client base more effectively. As a software firm, BriteCore attracts talented engineers who may be less likely to join an insurance company directly.

The organization operates with an efficiency of scale that is difficult for an individual insurer to achieve alone, and through its subscription model all customers are able to reap the benefits proportionally. Ÿ Dependable: Expertise is built over time in complex fields such as insurance and cloud engineering.

BriteCore has limited itself to 25% year growth for the last 9 years to make sure it maintains the bench depth to deliver dependably. BriteCores’ implementations have been universally successful with over 45 clients live and a retention rate that’s the best in the industry. Ÿ Innovation: BriteCore was built on technology and process innovation. Clients look to the company to stay ahead of new technology opportunities and build tooling that enables them to meet consumer demands while also driving operational efficiency. As a privately held and self-funded company, BriteCore reinvests 100% of its profits back into base platform growth and continually replaces existing code with new modules and expanded functionality. Ÿ

Tackling Competition In order to tackle competition, BriteCore offer a unique and |December 2017|

compelling value proposition in several ways including: Ÿ Modern Software: Most enterprise insurance software is based on old technology. Whereas, BriteCore is a modern Python application deployed over Amazon Web Services virtual private cloud.

The current technology allows BriteCore to offer new capabilities at a cost that is much lower than its competitors. Ÿ Continuous Delivery: BriteCore utilizes continuous delivery to offer a steady stream of enhancements on a nightly basis. Test driven development backs every new code release with deep regression testing to secure critical functionality across releases.

BriteCores’ customers receive the ongoing benefit of new software with a fully managed upgrade path. Ÿ Open Source: BriteCore is the only SaaS provider that offers source code contribution to customers and partners. Its community is empowered to drive its own technological future by participating directly in development efforts. BriteCores’ clients and vendor partners have introduced over 100 new features to the platform last year, in addition to the 800 built by its internal team. Ÿ Transparency: BriteCore promotes transparent, honest. The organization publishes pricing openly on their website (a rarity in the industry), and hosts a user forum for unmoderated information sharing among the client base. BriteCore even share financials freely with customers and other partners.

The future of BriteCore is different because it is driving shared value for the whole community, not just a small group of shareholders.

Painting the Picture of Brite Future BriteCore is working diligently to build the best insurance administration platform in the world. It began by servicing a very small and targeted market of domestic regional property casualty carriers writing less than $10m in premium. This allowed BriteCore to build a platform that serviced the broader needs of a small customer well. Once that problem domain was addressed, BriteCore began scaling the size and complexity of its customers. Today, it is managing billions of dollars in premium for companies across the US. In the coming years, BriteCore will replace its entire current product generation with a new suite of modules that are designed to meet the needs of Tier 1 carriers, both domestically and abroad. Several million lines of code must be added to the base platform, and its subscription base has recently scaled large enough to support this initiative inhouse. One can expect to see BriteCore beginning to work with the nation’s largest insurers in the next two years as it offers capabilities such as a business rules engine, a workflow configuration layer, and language and currency internationalization.

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Eurostop Empowering Retailers with EPOS and Stock Control Software

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ith the advent of the Internet and multiple handheld smart devices, consumers can now buy anything from anywhere across the globe, meaning that retailers need to keep one step ahead with connected systems for managing stock. Recognizing the same, Eurostop—a UK based provider of software and hardware for the fashion, footwear and lifestyle retail sector, which was founded in 1990, continues to provide the very latest solutions for its customers. Started by retailers, Eurostop demonstrates time and again its deep understanding of the issues that retailers face every day.

Eurostop’s solutions manage EPOS, stock control, merchandise management, fulfilment, warehouse picking and packing, footfall and shopping mall tenant management systems. To ensure that retailers get the best out of the systems and stay on top of their business, Eurostop provides a range of easy to use analysis and reporting tools.

Moreover, Eurostop’s systems integrate with all the major ERP and e-commerce platforms, providing customers with a truly best in class approach.

1970 and there he worked for well known high street brands including K Shoes and Lord John. Later, he became a retail consultant at Honeywell Bull, which was the fifth largest computer company in the world at the time.

One EPOS solution connected across your business and retail channels for a connected customer centric experience

A Hard-Working Leader Richard Loh is the CEO and founder of Eurostop. He credits his early retail experience along with hard work and perseverance for his success.

He said ‘You really have to take each challenge as it comes, and never give up. In my experience, there is always an alternative way to achieve the same outcome.’

From early beginnings selling shoes as a graduate trainee in Malaysia, he then progressed from a sales assistant to area manager and onto head office. Richard moved to the UK in

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In 1990 Richard was inspired to setup his own company and decided to form Eurostop, starting with his own EPOS systems for the fashion and footwear industry. Since then, Eurostop has grown considerably and now has a reputation as one of the most innovative retail software houses providing stock control and EPOS systems to over 30,000 retail stores worldwide. |December 2017|

years, Eurostop has been expanding its business in Asia and as well as London, and now has operations in Singapore, Shanghai, Xiamen and Hong Kong. The contribution to the business from the Asian operations has grown steadily from 5% to 30%.

Eurostop has recently signed up two independent fashion retailers in Singapore, Echo of Nature and Design and Comfort (D & C), and both of them have selected Eurostop’s connected retail solution for their businesses.

This follows the recent announcement that Charles & Keith, an expanding fashion retailer with over 500 stores worldwide, has chosen to deploy Eurostop’s full retail solution for new outlets located in South Korea, Japan, Cambodia, Macao and Taiwan. Both Echo of Nature and D & C are using Eurostop’s full retail solution, including epos, e-mobile, e-retail and e-cubes to manage sales and stock across their stores.

Keeping Competition at Bay and Painting a Bright Future

Richard Loh CEO & Founder

An Industry with No Boundaries Richard believes that boundaries are being blurred across the retail landscape. As well as bricks and mortar, consumers use online shopping, social media, the latest mobile technology and advanced fulfilment options, to shop on demand for anything, from anywhere and from any device. These omnichannel retail demands mean that retailers now need to develop and deliver an excellent customer experience. To do this they need robust technology and well designed systems and processes to ensure that they understand and cater for the buying habits and preferences of their customers; enabling them to deliver the right product, at the right time, at the right price and to the right location.

Eurostop stands head and shoulders above its competition because it takes the time to understand its customers’ requirements. The company was founded by retailers for retailers, an ethos that still holds true today. Each Eurostop installation receives a personalized service to ensure the retailer gets the most out of the system. Everyone at Eurostop believes it is worth taking the extra time to be sure that clients are well trained on the system, and understand its strengths and capabilities. This helps retailers to build their business, and grow alongside Eurostop.

In the future, Eurostop’s CEO projects that we can expect to see Eurostop in many more countries around the globe as it continues to expand its offering. More importantly, Eurostop will continue to focus on delivering the solutions, based on proven technology, that its customers need to survive and thrive in a very dynamic and exciting marketplace.

You can visit Eurostop :www.eurostop.com

Tackling Internationalization According to Richard, internationalization is the biggest challenge driven in part by the ‘always on’ culture. When setting up an operation in a new location understanding local culture and customs in order to meet requirements is paramount. With operations in many countries understanding the different cultures has been quite challenging, but ultimately rewarding. During the last 8 |December 2017|

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Software Trend

Switching

to

Software-as-a-Service – An Investment that Can Pay Dividends

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Software Trend

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n this day and age, businesses from all spheres need to stay up-to-date with the latest technological advancements to keep up with the growing competition. To make a business atmosphere much more productive and efficient, entrepreneurs are investing in the latest tools and services in the market. Among these, SaaS stands as the most popular tech tool for business.

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business solution, where an application is hosted on the cloud and licensed on the basis of subscription, has gone on to become immensely popular among the emerging start-ups. SaaS offers an attractive package of benefits for small businesses that include faster execution, less up-front cost, flexibility, low level of dependency on IT and easier updates. Today, consumers prefer purchasing subscriptions on online music applications instead of buying a CD from a brick-andmortar store or ordering food from an app instead of going to a restaurant. The solutions provided by SaaS are endless, and entrepreneurs are starting to take notice of that.

Switching towards SaaS business model has enticing benefits for businesses to escalate their sales numbers.

Easier Updates When setting up the on-premise software platforms or infrastructure, it not only time and energy consuming, rather it is also difficult to set up, especially for hardware devices. SaaS is cloud hosted and operated by a third-party cloud service provider. As the responsibility for upgrades would rest upon the shoulders of a service provider, one will reap the benefits of automated updates without any uninterrupted business operations. Since SaaS providers manage the application updates, it will ensure the usage of the latest version of the software without any hassle of reimplementing and re-customizing the default features.

Minimal Cost Managing and operating an on-premise software is much more expensive as there are various investments that need to be made, such as on equipment, tools and devices, electricity bills, premise space, security and manpower.

Switching to SaaS provides a business owner the advantage of not having to invest on such physical requirements. The initial costs for cloud services are typically much lower as compared with an on-premise setup. As the SaaS applications are subscription-based, there is little need for management operations. While budgeting for a new cloud solution, it is important to analyze the available options and choose the solution that best fits the budgetary needs of the company.

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Software Trend

Less Maintenance Required Cloud services do not require any hardware maintenance or repairs, it offers multi-incremental backups, if ever there’s a need to rollback. Data centers take care of any restoration or data backup, and failures are fixed in very little time as cloud service providers have a larger workforce. On the other hand, maintaining an on-premise system requires a lot more time and money. The IT team will spend considerable time administrating daily check-ups to fix issues and technical problems. Whereas on switching to SaaS, these maintenance requirements will no longer remain a concern.

fledged launch as a standalone platform.

Understand and Analyze the Market It is extremely imperative for a business to determine and understand the addressable market for SaaS. One must identify their rival’s strengths and weaknesses and find relevant partners to assist with the switch. Once the market demand is understood and analyzed, there will be a unique perspective about your SaaS solution for your existing customers and clients.

Determining the Pricing Strategy As compared to an on-premise system, SaaS offers way more flexibility regarding the price structure. Determining No Requirement of Space Having an on-premise system for a business requires loads the price for your new solution will be a key factor to help of space as servers and hardware installations need to be set you yield higher sales numbers. SaaS provides the up. Installations like wiring, ventilation, and devices for opportunity to charge subscriptions based on monthly or security measures would require a much larger space and yearly payment schemes. Upon acquiring knowledge about functional room. This won't be the case if SaaS is adapted, your target audience, determining the pricing strategy for as all the essential requisites are taken care of by the cloud SaaS services would become much easier to narrow down. service providers.

Refining the Existing Sales Strategy What to Keep in Mind when Making the Switch to It's significantly much cheaper and easier to retain the existing customers than acquiring new customers. Refining Software-as-a-Service the sales strategy for SaaS solutions will help to hold on to Get Started with your Transition Fast the present customers instead of hunting down new and Switching to SaaS business model can be a long, tedious potential ones. and ongoing process that can have an impact on each and every department within the company. Because of this, Initially switching to SaaS may seem difficult, but once you implementing it as soon as possible is a wise choice to have a product or service that offers significant value, then make. SaaS solution can be used to serve the existing customers during its built-in phase until its ready for a full- the upsides are seriously high.

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ISU Corp A High-tech Custom Software Solutions Company that Goes Extra Mile to Ensure Client Satisfaction

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.T. has become such an integral part of society. The software industry has continued to grow and adapt as new technologies emerge. ISU Corp has been doing the same, providing custom Microsoft software services since 2005. They are a high-tech company specializing in custom software solutions and consulting. ISU Corp has a comprehensive team of IT professionals that bring to the company many years of experience in a wide-variety of technologies. The team writes software applications for various corporations and see their projects through from beginning to end. ISU Corp’s main focus has always been on their clients, as they are the reason the company is in business. Additionally, ISU Corp never fails to go the extra mile to ensure client satisfaction with the work done, they think of their client’s as partners and strongly believe that when they get the client to succeed in their individual projects, ISU Corp succeeds with them.

A Steadfast Leader David Mansilla is the Founder and CEO of ISU Corp. His energetic personality, dedicated work ethic, and winning smile are all the attributes which one will notice immediately upon meeting this senior software architect.

David personally enjoys working with each and every person on his team, and values his colleagues as a family.

He had been working in the software industry for numerous years until he decided to start his own company. He was motivated to venture off on his own when he saw a big necessity in the market that he felt he could fulfill. This necessity was in getting top talent which produces an exceptional return on investment. He was working in an industry where talent was very scarce.

“I was working in a senior management position for multiple enterprises, and we had a really hard time finding good development resources and finding people with the right attitude. What I noticed is that culture is what attracts world class developers. I began to learn how to build a

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good culture within my development team as a Manager and also how to motivate people to work with me based on our values. I realized that I could do that for a business, and that’s how I started consulting,” David CEO. On top of his diligent work with ISU Corp, David also finds time to help his community on the Advisory Board for Neruda Arts — an organization that raises funds for

We strive to create a win - win environment, where partnership, honesty & professionalism mandate every task we conduct for our clients

bringing artists from around the world into the K-W area.

He is also an active member of Loving Arms- a non-profit organization, offering assistance to children and their families in Guatemala. Their Mission is to help transform the lives and communities of the Guatemalan people they serve by empowering them to become self-sufficient. David enjoys travelling and spending time with his wonderful kids and beautiful wife, Shelly. Adding to his list of hobbies, David mentors on how to become successful with startup companies. He can also be found working up a sweat at the local gym, Loving Arms providing meals under privilege Guatemala.

|December 2017|

successful software launch and implementation. With this business model, they aim to get the people best suited for the job, to enable finishing on schedule, and with the expected results.

At ISU Corp the clients’ success is their highest priority.

They strive to create a win - win environment, where partnership, honesty and professionalism mandate every task they conduct for their clients.

Hiring the Right People with Right Attitude ISU Corp derives success from various sources; from the excellent rapport the company builds with its customers to having the best people working in the team. “We make sure we hire the right people, with the right attitude, and excellent work ethic that will help us ensure client satisfaction. We hire the best of the best and in turn provide our team members with an excellent company culture. We treat each other with respect and think of our team members as part of a family,” David adds.

David Mansilla Founder & CEO

A Humble Beginning At the beginning, ISU Corp was faced with a few challenges such as acquiring clients and making sure that the company got the best talent.

“What we learned is: we must choose the right client with the right values. We also learned that we must be very careful while choosing the right engineers with the right values. We make sure that we create a win-win situation where our developers and our employees are happy to go to work because they are learning and they are growing. Our clients are happy to retain us because we provide excellent value to them and we provide exceptional service,” David affirms.

Client Satisfaction at the Forefront The client’s come to ISU Corp because they provide exceptional custom software that is ensured to have a great return on investment.

ISU Corp staffs all their projects with senior resources and if needed, with other pre-qualified consultants and technical experts from business partners, associates, and vendor professional services. These alliances allow ISU Corp to bring to the project special skill sets needed to have a

|December 2017|

David believes this helps the company grow as the clients know that they can entrust ISU Corp with their projects, and the clients keep coming back for all their future development needs. The firm also goes above and beyond what the client has asked for and provides wonderful value adds such as Hublinked.com; a private social network designed for optimal client communication and collaboration. With the creation of portals consistent of blogs and posts, hublinked.com automatically documents the entire project and keeps all the stakeholders informed of any changes in strategy. This helps the company ensure that they deliver projects on time and within budget.

Continuing to Diversify and Venture into New Technologies In the near future, ISU Corp will continue diversifying and venturing into new technologies. They have already started doing so, by expanding their mobile application services to provide top notch Android and IOS applications. The next frontier for the company will be to conquer AI software.

David believes AI is the future when it comes to the I.T industry and for this reason ISU Corp wants to expand to AI next.

“We want to be the best in the industry and we strive to keep priding ourselves in the awesome work we do for our clients. We want to keep fostering our company culture that has allowed us to create an environment of learning, mentorship and motivation,” David concludes with the future proceedings of ISU Corp.

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Lansweeper Helping Organizations to Manage IT Networks Reliably

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answeeper is a software package for IT network management used by organizations of all sizes. It can discover, analyze, control, and co-ordinate an entire IT network, saving IT administration staff an incredible amount of time.

proud to work with Microsoft to help our mutual customers create more value-driven relationships, and maximize the value of SAM.”

The software gathers detailed information about every machine and user on clients’ IT-environments, and provides a general overview of the network to system administrators. In just a few clicks, they can generate detailed network reports, from the last virus scan to current printer toner levels.

Lansweeper believes that to stay relevant, any IT product has to evolve as rapidly as technology itself is.

Meeting Challenges Head-on

Lansweeper provides an

Lansweeper also gives IT administrators the ability to take action to predict, circumvent and solve issues within the IT environment.

exhaustive inventory of your

An Enigmatic Leader

entire network environment,

Lansweeper started its journey as one of its founder’s many side projects when he was a system administrator for a healthcare multinational. His aim was to cut the excessive time required to keep a manual inventory of the entire IT network up-to-date. The tool turned out to be extremely effective and he decided to share Lansweeper online, free of cost.

ensuring a solid first step in simplifying SAM

Today, Lansweeper is led by Bart Maes, who is the CEO of the organization.He studied computer programming and worked at several companies prior to joining Lansweeper as a Client Services Manager in June 2013.

Lansweeper software is always changing and expanding, be it through small fixes or major updates, all of which are made available to customers at no charge. These changes are inspired both by IT trends and client requests.

“Lansweeper understands the critical role transparency and vendor involvement play in a healthy software supply chain,” he says, “Lansweeper provides an exhaustive inventory of your entire network environment, ensuring a solid first step in simplifying Software Asset Management (SAM). We’re extremely

Much of Lansweeper’s success can be attributed to its ecommerce approach. However, this comes with its own weaknesses - the organization is very dependent on search engines and word of mouth among IT professionals. It tackles this challenge with strong content marketing, listening to its clients and potential clients, and proactively creating effective solutions.

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Tackling Other Players Lansweeper has always differentiated itself from other similar service providers in two major ways.

Firstly, the organization never positions itself as a competitor to big names in the network management market like Microsoft, Cisco, Dell, and Hewlett Packard.

However, these organizations focus on their own set of products while Lansweeper discovers all devices. Instead of competing with them, Lansweeper stands beside them and offers the end user a broader set of solutions.

The second big difference is the price tag. Lansweeper has a very competitive pricing scheme where its products cost only a tenth of competing software.

Painting the Future

Bart Maes

Lansweeper has gone through an explosive expansion over the last few years. A larger team and a new structure within the organization has opened the door to a new, more personalized approach towards customer support.

CEO

Lansweeper always takes into consideration every problem, question and suggestion that reaches them by phone, email or on their online forum. By catering closely to its customers’ needs and offering reliable support, the organization has created a loyal community of users.

This will enable the company to focus on the development of new features better suited to customers’ needs while remaining true to the core DACC principle: Discover, Analyze, Control and Coordinate.

Lansweeper plans to focus on what it does the best and will continue to work together with others who have done the same to cover all bases.

When the Interest Lies in IT Asset Management Lansweeper’s focus is on the IT asset management industry, which is quickly moving towards a cloud-based future. Lansweeper’s focus until now has been on physical IT infrastructure, but as more and more companies are drawn to the benefits and cost-efficiency of the cloud, there is less infrastructure to sweep on physical LANs. There is no stopping the evolution toward virtualization and Lansweeper does not intend to sit idly by. It is in an optimal position to form the bridge between its clients’ local networks and their respective virtual assets in the cloud. Lansweeper’s aim will always be to provide its clients a reliable and detailed inventory of all their assets, no matter where they are hosted.

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Industry Insider

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|December 2017|

Industry Insider

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hen there is science, there is an invention. And the word which is most relatable with the words “IT,” “Software,” “Solution,” “Technology” and “Industry” is innovation. Innovation brings new items, problems and even the solutions to the industry. Innovation gives birth to trends and curiosity gives birth to discovery.

As the day passes by, the number of businesses grow up and lead to further competition. Competition is getting tougher each day, and every enterprise is fighting to be on the top of customers’ priority list. Experts say that to thrive in such a challenging competition, and businesses must offer products/solutions/services better than competitors, at the same time, it must be less expensive, high in quality and easy to use. Enterprises must always update themselves about the industry scenarios, consumer demands, and trends. Successful entrepreneurs say, “To be ahead of others, you should not follow trends, rather you should either be the one to create the trends or you should be the one whom trends will follow.”

Like any other industry, software solutions are easing up the job of the transport sector people. It is quite known to all of us that the transport software solutions are adding up the productivity of the logistics companies. Recent studies suggested that savings were observed up to 35 percent on an average within the first six months of opting for the transport software solution. Businesses can use this as a study material and pace up their functioning without much

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investment in the infrastructure only by adapting to the latest trends in the transport industry.

As found in a survey report on the analysis of the global industry scenario, share, size, trends and forecast, Transportation Management Systems Market is expected to develop a double figure CAGR of about 12.20 percentage by the end of 2020. This rise in the CAGR is a probable result of the increase in e-commerce segment, intermodal transportation and stable economy. On the basis of the study report, experts mentioned that as compared to the onpremise services, the demand for SAAS-based TMS services is going to observe a sharp incline shortly.

Simple and basic ideas give birth tremendous innovations.

Similarly, some of the basic concepts evolved into greater transport software solutions like Yard navigation for driver's assistance, simple GPS tracking app, small ELD in place, real-time synchronization with load board, EDI integration and instant booking for carriers. It is a clear example of how TMS can help one to broaden their business perspective and take strategic steps to improve the revenue model of their business. Making the right move is the most crucial thing in business. Leading a business is more like playing a chess game, once you make a wrong step, you cannot take it back, and it can help you to checkmate or lead you to lose your king. In short, right measures should be taken in good time to grow one’s business.

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Industry Insider

The trends which are either revolving or forthcoming are as follows: Combination of Big Data Analysis and TMS For logistic companies, all payment related issues including fees, duties, and taxes are managed by the TMS mostly. In the recent times, it is observed that these logistic companies have begun to opt the Big Data Analysis serviced from the outsourced services. This new step has eventually helped companies to take better decisions by investing intelligently in the resources. Some experts are even coining this as a golden step as this fantastic combination of TMS solution, and the assistance of big data analysis is going to improve and refine the decision-making process for the shippers.

Dimensional Pricing is the Future The days when the decades-old method was used to determine the shipping prices based on freight classification are soon fading away, and it is opening the doors for dimensional pricing. The demand of shippers is rising, and they are now expecting the solutions to find out the density of shipments by studying various factors that range from the transit time to the size of the shipment and demand. This analysis is helping businesses to gain profit by supporting them in building strategic decision. The service can be either in-house carriers or outsourced or collaborative.

Collaborative Assistance Can Help Your Business Grow The discussion begins here with the Big Data analysis, and without talking about the collaborative methods used in logistics, the discussion would remain incomplete. The current scenario apparently suggests that the enterprises are using Big Data analysis to increase their profitability by utilizing inter-management of resources. The concept of Less Than Truckload (LTL) Shipping can be used to lend out the collaborative assistance to help Logistic companies to succeed which might not find it profitable to employ complete carrier on the same route.

Use of IOT in Logistic Industry With each day passing by, the usage and significance of the Internet of Things are increasing in the logistics industry. Both logistics industry and TMS software solutions are quickly picking up IoT and making the ultimate utilization of the technology. According to the famous American research company Gartner, the prediction has been made that IoT will connect about 25 billion sensor devices by the time we reach 2020. Other critical analysis made in the field like Connected Vehicle Field Infrastructure Footprint Analysis by American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials clearly stated that when vehicles are able to adjust to surrounding threats, highway transportation will be much safer with a severe decline in the number of crashes. The reason behind this is stated as that the information can be carried and conveyed between the carriers via M2M connected systems.

Technology is rapidly improving and changing the ways how industry used to look and perform a few months back. Even a day can change a huge lot thing in the world of technology. Cloud solutions are getting more and more into the industry and breaking all the borders of geography and operational limitations. With the trends observed already, the cloud solution is among the modern technologies which are helping logistic transportation industry to become more robust and dynamic to adapt changes and maintain efficiency. Along with cloud, mobility, big data analysis and other trends mentioned above, booming of e-commerce is expected to help the transportation industry to reach their ultimate goal and reinvent the existing transportation management systems.

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|December 2017|

QUALITEST GROUP Helping Clients Mitigate Risks of Defective Software

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e are completely dependent on computers and software for our mundane activities. However, defective software can lead to the loss of clients and users, fallen business processes, impacts on revenue, security breaches, and even violation of regulation.

These risks grow even with the increased dependency on software. In order to mitigate these risks QualiTest Group was founded back in 1997. QualiTest was recognized as the world’s second largest pure play QA and testing company (Nelson Hall) and is working on to become the world’s largest. QualiTest has grown significantly over the past few years, typically at a double-digit growth rate percentage ranging from the mid-to-high twenties. The company has been recognized as the only Visionary pure play QA and Testing Service Company in the “Gartner Magic Quadrant” for each of the past 3 years.

The Dynamic Leader Ayal Zylberman is the CEO and Co-Founder of QualiTest. Back in 1997, when QualiTest came into the picture, most of the testing firms were focusing their efforts on the impending Y2K bug, but Ayal decided to go against the tide and invested his resources into test automation & performance testing, and technologies that were just being developed.

Ayal is a veteran in the area of software testing, specializing in various industries including military, billing systems, network management, networking, and telephony since 1995. He is a pioneer in testing automation, and was among the first to implement Mercury’s automated tools.

Thanks to his passion for quality, Ayal is committed in spreading global practices, including Keyword Driven Testing, Scrum Based Testing, and more among QA teams in leading organizations. Additionally, with numerous published articles and an active lecture schedule, Ayal is recognized as an expert in the field of quality assurance and testing services worldwide.

Test Beyond the Obvious According to QualiTest, Ayal’s bet on real testing growth beyond the Y2K focus paid off, and QualiTest continued its expansion of new and old services, technologies, and

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methodologies. Whether it is about maintaining a legacy system, modernizing to digital technologies, or performing bleeding edge work, QualiTest is always there to help its clients. The organization converts clients into partners, and displays an understanding of not just what the customer wants, but also what the customer needs. The organization achieves this by transcending beyond mere quality assurance needs in order to focus on business assurance needs. Its motto is “test beyond the obvious.” Nowadays, it

We leverage our deep technology, business and industry-specific understanding to deliver solutions that align with our clients’ business context

is easy to find stories about data breaches, website crashes, and product recalls all caused by software that lacked proper testing; these problems are as catastrophic as they are avoidable.

Tackling Challenges According to QualiTest, testing has become too generic and is not aligned with the business environment. It is more of a formality and doesn’t add much value to the software.

Testers are not asking the right questions and software continues to be deployed with significant amount of issues, that can put businesses at risk. QualiTest Software Testing and Business Assurance solutions offer an alternative by customizing its approach instead of using cookie cutter |December 2017|

Where Leaders are Born QualiTest only looks for long term career testers with a strong tester mindset, solid understanding of testing concepts and tools, good communication skills, aligned with the organization’s values. The company is not a place for those who do QA testing just to get a paycheck, but if QA testing is ones true passion that person will fit in with like-minded people. QualiTest has different levels of testers; for example, from a skills perspective, the tester will need to know a little of everything, and the organization refers this as an “All Rounder.” An all rounder is a person who can design tests, implement tests, whether manual or leveraged, through some sort of automation, and understand the business context and risk; a person who can generate test assets or test coverage as much as possible through some sort of automation. Additionally, the organization also has specialists and managers at helm.

Ayal Zylberman CEO & Co-founder

solutions. The company leverages its deep industry-specific understanding with technology-specific competencies and unique testing-focused assets to deliver solutions that align with their clients’ business context. In turn, clients often comment that the organization’s solutions are amongst the most comprehensive and creative that they have ever experienced while delivering the highest value. The clients also comment that QualiTest’s solutions have increased their trust in the software they release. This has enabled QualiTest to become their primary software testing and business assurance partner.

When Peace of Mind is the Key Clients trust QualiTest to deliver a fully managed testing service, monitored and evaluated by a pre-defined Service Level Agreement (SLA) using customer-defined KPI’s.

More notably, clients get peace of mind when customers state their conceptual concern for QualiTest to work towards that end, which may be more complex than the ever-popular “on-time and on budget.” Components may include QualiTest’s service, the quality of its work, or the value of its work. Regarding the industry, the company has a lot of work in Healthcare IT, Finance, Telecom, Medical Devices, Media and E-Commerce. It is these quality experiences that make QualiTest’s customers to return to them with more work, expand to other departments within their organizations. |December 2017|

Leadership goals of QualiTest completely focus on result, commitment to the highest standards of service in every project. Over 90% of the senior testers and 80% of management started at QualiTest as junior testers.

QualiTest’s new 360 Degree Feedback program allows it to plan out what career changes an employee wants for themself which can include a shift towards specialization, breadth, a departmental move, or progressing up the management chain.

Getting all Decked Up for a Bright Future While the organization has a wide range of methodology, disciplines, and industries, it is always looking for the future of testing, which often means new technologies and trends across of the world. This has recently led the involvement with GDPR Compliance (a data privacy compliance mandate affecting all European data) and AIbased growth of their SAP and cybersecurity areas.

QualiTest’s knowledge and innovation team is always looking for new trends and technologies that will be becoming more involved with software testing to add to their repertoire, eventually adding new industries, tools, services and techniques to their in-house education and offerings. The brilliant knowledge and innovation team is at the forefront of new places for it to go and grow. The top 3 trends in which the organization expects to continue its growth in the coming year, are agile DevOps/continuous testing, digital transformation and IoT testing (with an emphasis on security). New areas will continue to emerge as the world encounters new advances and hurdles.

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WiTuners Providing Cost-Effective WLAN Software Suite for Optimal Performance

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ince its inception, the world wide web has transformed virtually every aspect of human existence. Today, both individuals and organizations would find it extremely difficult to function without the internet. The invention of Wi-Fi has simplified internet access and users can literally work from anywhere with a Wi-Fi enabled device if a Wi-Fi network is available.

However, the WLAN deployment process is complicated, and a sub-optimally deployed WLAN can cause productivity bottle necks.

WiTuners was founded in 2011 to develop Wi-Fi optimization software that tunes business wireless networks virtually instantaneously. It enables enterprises and managed services providers to maximize WLAN capacity, performance and coverage while reducing the cost, complexity and risks of WLAN maintenance.

WiTuners brings to the market the only automated, realtime WLAN tuning solution that can accurately mimic realworld network behavior and conditions. With a more complete view of real-world WLAN, as compared to conventional planning, site survey or network management systems alone, WiTuners software solutions create optimized configurations which out-perform manual tuning, every time.

WiTuners was recognized as one of the Top 10 WLAN Solution Providers of 2017 by Enterprise Networking, along with industry leaders like Aerohive, Ekahau and Extreme Networks. The recognition is based on an evaluation of WiTuners’s WLAN Optimization Software Suite which helps business Wi-Fi networks maintain peak performance levels at all times.

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An Established Thought Leader Luke Qian is the Founder of the WiTuners, Ltd., the U.S.based Wi-Fi optimization solution provider that developed the WiTuners software suite.

Our mission is to ensure that, through the use of WiTuners’ solutions and technologies, current and future WLAN system components and software are utilized to their maximum capacity in the most efficient and cost effective manner possible

Luke is a well known personality in the Wi-Fi industry – he has been granted more than 20 patents related to advanced Wi-Fi technology. He is also the key contributor to the popular Wi-Fi industry standard IEEE 802.11n. Luke |December 2017|

Planner, WiTuners On-Demand, WiTuners Connected, WiTuners Dashboard, and WiTuners Mobile.

It focuses on optimal WLAN performance across the entire life cycle of a wireless network, from the launch of new WLANs with WLAN planning and Site Survey, to performance diagnostics, auditing and real-time performance tuning for existing business wireless networks.

Fully complimentary to all enterprise-level WLAN equipment and their respective network management software, WiTuners enables network administrators to easily, seamlessly, and continuously fine-tune and optimize network performance to improve WLAN network performance.

Thanks to WiTuners, organizations can significantly cut their WLAN deployment and maintenance costs while enjoying better WLAN performance.

Luke Qian Founder

invented several key components of Wi-Fi technology used in every high-throughput Wi-Fi device.

Helping Organizations to Deploy WLAN Networks The process of WLAN deployment planning, tuning and performance auditing is notoriously complex, time consuming and expensive because of the complex nature of Wi-Fi technologies. Sub-optimally deployed and maintained WLANs will soon be gone for good because the sheer number of access points, traffic from cellular networks, volume of data, and complexity of applications will result in an intolerable productivity bottleneck.

Luke’s book on Wireless Technology, ‘Sharing RF Spectrum with Commodity Wireless Technologies: Theory and Practice’, is published by Springer and used as a text book in an Electrical Engineering course at Rice University called ‘Wireless Networking for Under-Resourced Urban Communities’.

WiTuners provides a solution to address this everincreasing demand. Its capability of optimal planning and ongoing automated true-performance based tuning clearly separates the company’s products from existing connectivity-based WLAN solutions.

Luke has been involved in the Wi-Fi industry since its inception and has worked in leading industry organizations like AiroNet and Cisco.

Thanks to WiTuners’s software suite, business wireless networks can be tuned in seconds, WLAN maintenance is simpler than ever, and can adapt effortlessly when networks evolve and conditions change.

Providing Trailblazing Solutions WiTuners is a cost-effective software solution for managing large Wi-Fi networks. WiTuners’s Advanced Wi-Fi Tuning Technologies are the first to provide a complete solution for optimal Wi-Fi Planning, WLAN optimization, and automated real-time WLAN Audit.

The WiTuner software suite is built on WiTuners’s Advanced Wi-Fi Tuning Technologies. This unique all-inone WLAN optimization software suite includes WiTuners

|December 2017|

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Executive’s Voice

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|December 2017|

Executive’s Voice

data that utilities are struggling to manage and create new business value from.

• More than smart meters, the term “smart grid” implies grid devices, assets and data interacting in real time and with less human intervention to respond to changing grid conditions. This degree of interoperability and automation has been elusive or cost-prohibitive thus far for the low-voltage level of the network.

Most of these challenges are technology-centered, while some are cultural and organizational, but the upside is that these challenges are being solved. Information technology and operational technology are converging rapidly in the utility and energy space to create a new strategic and operational reality. This comes none too soon in light of significant business challenges utilities worldwide are facing as well as the economic and environmental challenges we all face.

Led by companies such as Cisco and Itron, a growing ecosystem of smart grid technology providers have collaborated to evolve network architecture so that utility field area networks look and behave much more like enterprise IT networks. Solution providers are also introducing more distributed intelligence to grid operations that enable grid assets and devices that are currently “siloed” to work in concert with one another. In addition, the available value stream of this network infrastructure investment is broadening by connecting to emerging markets and applications such as smart cities and the Internet of Things (IoT). |December 2017|

The heavy lifting really began four years ago when Itron and Cisco announced an agreement to work together to rearchitect Itron’s widely-deployed OpenWay smart grid network to IPv6 architecture from Cisco. This joint development effort, undertaken by the industry leaders in utility automation and networking, was a watershed effort in the industry. The smart metering network became a multi-application smart grid and smart city network, broadening significantly its usefulness and value. A growing ecosystem of leading smart grid technology providers can now build to a common reference architecture through the Connected Grid Cisco Developer Network to accelerate adoption and spark innovation.

But standards-based, multi-application network architecture by itself was not enough to address all those challenges.

Itron believes that for the smart grid to deliver on its promised value, data analysis and action must take place where it makes most sense-increasingly at the edge of the network rather than in the utility back office. That’s the whole idea behind ITRON RIVA™, a new distributed intelligence and advanced communication platform the company launched this fall.

Distributing intelligence across the network allows us to economically solve utility problems that couldn’t be feasibly solved before, greatly increasing the value and timeliness of smart grid analytic applications as well as the utilization of network capacity. Specifically, these development efforts yield a new and common set of technology attributes for meters, grid sensors and other types of intelligent devices, whether they come from Itron

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Executive’s Voice

• Locational awareness: For the first time, smart meters and grid devices know where they are in relation to other grid assets (feeders, phases, substations, transformers, distributed generation, other meters, etc.). This “selfawareness” opens up an entirely new approach to smart grid use cases and applications.

• “Multilingual” devices: A unified software platform supports multiple communication/application protocols, allowing a single meter or grid device to simultaneously speak the language of distribution automation, load control and smart metering. This enables highly localized communication and action among diverse devices, assets and grid control systems to respond to changing conditions at the edge of the network.

• Edge processing power: Thanks to Moore’s Law, Itron is embedding the computing equivalent of a recent generation smart phone in high-volume meters and grid devices to enable advanced communications, data processing and analysis in the edge device.

Perhaps most interestingly, the Itron Riva distributed intelligence platform has enabled Itron to revolutionize grid communications. Known as adaptive communications technology, this capability incorporates multiple communications media-RF Mesh, Wi-Fi and Power Line Carrier-on the same chipset, working in concert to solve key network performance and connectivity challenges.

Running on the OpenWay smart grid network, adaptive communications technology always utilizes the fastest and most reliable communication path for every message and every link based on location, network operating conditions

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“Led by companies such as Cisco and Itron, a growing ecosystem of smart grid technology providers have collaborated to evolve network architecture so that utility eld area networks Jeff Carkhuff look and behave much more like enterprise IT networks”

,,

The ability for edge devices to know exactly where they are, process and analyze data independently and communicate with other types of devices creates many new possibilities for improving the accuracy, resolution and timeliness of analytic applications. A clear opportunity exists to deliver new business value in areas such as localized demand response/load control, asset monitoring and management, outage detection and response, renewable integration and diversion detection. This approach allows utilities to put intelligence where it makes the most sense, whether that’s in the edge device, the field area network itself or at the enterprise level, meaning analytics no longer must always take place in the back office where “tomorrow” or “next week” is no longer good enough.

,,

or third-party partners who embed the technology or build to the standard.

and the nature of the application or data. This is true whether communicating with an office application or another device on the grid.

This makes deployment of network infrastructure easier, faster and less costly, while offering a single communications solution for both dense and difficult urban environments as well as lower-density areas. Adaptive communications technology flattens the cost curve during the latter stages of network deployment when the “hard-toreach” devices and areas must be addressed. In other words, it provides a network that continuously self-optimizes based on geography, topology, operating conditions and business requirements.

Together, these developments mean that many utilities throughout the world are in a good position to leverage these recent and significant advancements in network architecture, edge intelligence and analytics as they implement their grid modernization strategies and connect to broader opportunities such as smart cities and IoT. There is absolutely no doubt that the convergence of information technology and operational technology in the global utility industry will continue and accelerate, and that technology advancement will continue to outpace the asset lifecycle paradigm utilities have so long operated within.

Nevertheless, thresholds are reached that warrant a shift in thinking about how to approach and solve problems. For tomorrow’s grid, that time is now. |December 2017|

Editor’s Pick

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Editor’s Pick

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aaS or Software as a Service is a current phenomenon in the world of technology nowadays. It is an on demand, cloud-based delivery model for software applications. Over the years, SaaS has grown quite steadily.

However, these solutions are becoming more and more popular nowadays, thanks to the advantages of cloud computing and rage of benefits it offers. When it comes to SaaS, a service provider hosts the application at a remote location, and the user can access that by using a webbrowser. With the years to come, usage of SaaS is only expected to grow even further. So, here we are listing out few trends that can eventually shape the industry later on.

Considering the effectiveness of SaaS, it has grown ahead itself to something new termed as XaaS model (Everything as a service). Nowadays the majority of manufacturers and channel partners are using pay-as-you-go models to compute their organizations as they welcome the latest technology through cloud based services. It is believed that XaaS will bring more innovations to cloud-based businesses.

According to the latest industry trends, few organizations are trying to migrate their data to cloud software and platform services. However, few of the companies are seeking for service resolutions in order to merge within the current infrastructure to make it better. With the presence of legacy systems and concerns related to data security, the responsibility completely lies on SaaS MSP, when it comes to full integration without leaking any critical data.

With the constantly evolving technology market, soon DaaS (Data as a Service) will have a significant presence.

The main idea of DaaS is to help organizations with the wide variety of cloud based data at very minimal cost so that organizations can become smarter when it comes to decisions related to strategy planning.

systems in 2017, among all the respondent’s 10 percent are currently beta-testing apps and 21 percent are looking to add team members with mobile application and device management skills. With the growing usage of mobility, organizations are saving costs, and now they can work remotely and can increase customer response time.

Artificial Intelligence will play a big part soon. Last year, Google Home, Amazon Alexa, and Siri's Macbook debut brought AI personal experience within reach of people. The same trend can be anticipated this year when home enhancement and simplification is the key trend. For example, there will be developments in everyday activities such as switching on lights, opening, and closing of garage doors, switching sir conditioning on and off, etc. All these will be possible with the help of a smartphone.

According to a recent study, till date, more than 75 percent enterprise don’t possess a complete organization cohesive cloud strategy. Without the clarity into what software employees are using for their day to day processes, CIOs are failing to regulate processes, create plans, and preserve a critical business data. So, to discover various shadow IT departments, soon SaaS discovery tools will function to alert organizations and to find solutions.

Within a very short period, an increasing number of financially powerful cloud application MSP’s are advancing above the mark of $50 million mark. Which is eventually helping them to produce a surplus of venture capital firms who are on the lookout of making new investments. The result is an explosion in the sector of SaaS, however, soon the funding will become increasingly controversial.

SaaS applications are easy fit for small businesses and startups, where deploying and managing on-premise infrastructure is not a great idea. According to recent research, more than 6,000 European organizations, which range from pre-startups to established small businesses found many growth options. Whereas more than 64 percent of the survey respondents were already using the cloudbased software. By 2017, the percentage is expected to grow up to 78 percent. As per the research, financial management, project management, customer management, and marketing are the key areas where the organizations are seeking support from SaaS vendors.

Security will play a very important role in the upcoming days. With the rise of smartphone users, now cyber offenders have multiple entry points for security breaches, exposing personal and enterprise networks. As mentioned, remote working exposes employees to public open spaces with unencrypted networks making them more vulnerable to various threats. Nowadays malware can be injected in all kind of devices, which can eventually intercept the transferred data leaving more to be protected. So, with more and more innovations one can easily expect increased So, here are some of the key trends of SaaS, that can security solutions in the upcoming years. eventually change the market. However, we still expect more and more SaaS companies to expand their limits and Soon smartphone-friendly apps are going to be norm in move into different segments while evolving from single the industry. Thanks to the growing usage of smartphones product services to platforms. and tablets amongst the employees and customers.

According to recent survey, 35 percent of respondents said that they are planning to increase spending on mobile

|December 2017|

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