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Core reinvents drawing board [Dominion Post (Wellington, New Zealand)](Dominion Post (Wellington, New Zealand) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) WELLINGTON'S Core Technology has released a software development product that lets customers design applications social-networking style, including using chatrooms, photos and video. The product, Aviarc DrawingBoard, put software development in the hands of stakeholders by letting them dictate what the end product will look and feel like, rather than stating their requirements and hoping for the best, said chief executive Shane Mercer. "By the time you get to IT you don't give them ambiguous or fluffy things, they know exactly what they need to do and they can apply their engineering skills to the engineering pieces. We turn things upside down so we start at the end. It's unusual but we've found a way of making it work." Rather than have people collaborate on a document or a business- flow diagram to articulate their needs, DrawingBoard let them express their views and ideas in their own ways and those ideas could be added to or voted on by others. Head of markets John Boon said DrawingBoard helped people get ideas out of their head and into the real world. "People can put together any material they like any way they like and interact and bounce ideas until something special comes out. "While the DrawingBoard's doing that it's doing a lot of the work for you to actually build a computer application that runs using all those clever ideas. "You reduce time and cost because you got the design right in the first place." Real estate agents at Property Brokers had used Aviarc DrawingBoard to develop an application for tablet computers that would let them show customers marketing packages and easily organise details such as when open homes and photo shoots take place. DrawingBoard would complement its Aviarc cloud-based software development product for IT users, which lets customers see what tools look like as they are developed and continue to improve the application with developers after it has been deployed. Mercer said Aviarc was now on Fujitsu, IBM and Amazon's cloud computing platforms, and Core Technology was talking to "a couple of major defence contractors" in the United States it had been introduced to by New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, and which were interested in testing the software. The company was also gearing up to target independent software vendors in the US, which could use Aviarc to build software for their customers. "There are a lot of companies that have technology that's more than 10 years old and they want to get to software as a service and run their business in the cloud. They've got to there really quickly and efficiently." Core Technology was also part of the UCLA Anderson School of Management global access programme, which has seen MBA students from the school visit and conduct market research for the company. Core Technology has about 65 staff and planned to hire another 20 early next year. Last month it picked up a Science and Innovation Ministry technology development grant, which will fund 20 per cent of its research and development for the next three years. (c) 2011 ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved. |