Unidev – Software Development

Author Archive

Unidev has a number of websites that you may find useful.

Blog.unidev.com - This blog which contains company information as well as Java and C++ technical help

www.unidev.com - The main unidev web site. It describes the various services, has job posts and technical help

www.thenetimpact.com - The main site for The Net Impact. This describes our web design and web marketing offereings. This is our oldest site and is due to be replaced by a much improved version in the next 2 months.

www.auctori.com – The main site for the Auctori content management system. It describes the features and benefits of that product

www.auctorilaw.com – The Law firm specific version of Auctori that was built with specific functions and capabilites for law firms.

www.unidevtech.com – A technical blog about .NET web development.

blog.thenetimpact.com – The main company blog for The Net Impact. It covers an array of web design and web marketing topics as well as company announcements.

www.bestnetcms.com – This is our Auctori blog and covers various CMS related topics.

www.searchengineoptimizationstlouis.com – A blog covering search engine optimization and web marketing topics

Plus an array of Facebook pages, linkedin accounts, Youtube channels, flickr channels and Twitter accounts.

2009 was a good year for Unified Development, Inc. (unidev) and The Net Impact and it looks like 2010 could be a great year. This is a big improvement over the previous couple of years where we saw a very real slow down in overall IT spending especially on the new development side. Our development revenues were up this year. We’ve been very fortunate that most of our customers continued to invest in IT during those years even as their revenues were down. We also saw strong growth in our marketing and web group which has grown from only a few people in 2006 to over 20 today.
The big news for 2009 was the public launch of our Auctori line of enterprise content management systems. This uniquely architected SaaS solution was designed to integrate SEO best practices across the board as well as to be a true global web platform. It is already deployed in several law firms, cities, and global industrial products and medical supply companies. There are sites in over a dozen languages with more being added monthly.
The other big news for 2009 was our headquarters move to the Dierbergs building in Chesterfield. The new larger office was designed by us to suit the very open, communicative and friendly environment we wanted. Dierbergs and their contractors did an amazing job on the buildout of the space. It far exceeded my expectations.
2010 will bring a number of challenges and changes to our organization as I hope the economy begins its recovery. We made significant investments in training, software and management to continually improve the quality and speed of delivery of our services, products and processes. We feel we are well positioned to capture new business and really look forward to a great year.

Greg Alexander

Development efficiency is an area we are constantly investing in and working to improve. I feel it is imperative that we are able to deliver value to customers at the least cost possible. Just like Walmart, if we drive the costs down to develop high function software and then pass the savings on, it is a great thing for both us and our customers.
There are two general methods for approaching a development project (be it a simple website or a complex application). The first is to get a complete defintion prior to coding and then focusing on driving to completion, staying as true to the original design as possible. The second is to define a clear target but assume that the direction will change and that the requirements will change as more information becomes available during the design and development phases. Both work, we tend to the later because we feel our ultimate goal is to deliver the best value product to the customer which may or may not be exactly what was originally defined.
There are a number of important cost drivers of a development effort. Effective communications with the customer and within the team are probably the most important one. By communicating in a timely and complete manner, you can drastically reduce rework. This is also the biggest challenge as everyone communicates differently. It is easy to require daily meetings, it is a lot more difficult to ensure that everyone understands completely everything that was said in the meeting.
We designed the layout of our offices to support easy and constant communications between team members using a open spaces, sound deadening materials which allow many conversations to occur simultaneously without disturbing others. We encourage ‘rollup meetings’ and collaboration between team members to help make sure that everyone is moving in the same direction at all times. Teams coordinate activities within the team even though individual members may be from different operating groups (technical, creative, etc.) reducing unnecessary management overhead.
Other simple investments to make to improve efficiencies are having large and available white boards for discussions, dual or triple monitor development stations (probably the most cost effective efficiency there is), fast workstations and servers (it doesn’t help if it takes a lot of time each day to do the basic development housekeeping such as check in and check out) and available development, test and production systems so teams are not stepping on one another. The software tools you use are worth some effort to evaluate thoroughly. Developers will often gravitate to the latest and flashiest tools but those are not always the best idea, especially if they do not noticably improve the teams production and they are not consistent with the rest of your development platform. It is important however, to make sure you have excellent tools as these can be a great timesaver and a very worthwhile investment.
Training is another critical investment. Teams need to be aware of the latest methods and processes. Not only does this help with the code quality but also with creating more efficient designs.
With investment, training and time, you can work to reduce your development costs significantly. With lower costs, you also have a better risk profile which is a great value to both the developer and the customer.

We’ve added a new .NET technology blog that is specifically focused on Microsoft .NET development and Microsoft SQL Server. This blog is written my the various developers from our .NET team and will cover a broad range of topical technical issues. We hope you find articles like the recent one about IE 8 connectivity issues useful and a good read. Please feel free to offer us feedback as we’ll certainly need it.

Unidev has achieved Gold Certified Partner status with Microsoft along with 4 competencies. (Custom Development Solutions, Business Intelligence, ISV/Software Solutions, Data Management Solutions).

The Net Impact, a division of Unidev, specializes in search engine optimization, web design and web marketing.  In order to share some of our experiences and expertise in this space, our CEO, Greg Alexander, has created a new blog covering SEO and marketing topics: www.searchengineoptimizationstlouis.com. Greg’s goal for the blog goal is to examine the technical issues surrounding web marketing in detail.  Be sure to add this blog to your reader so you don’t miss any of the interesting posts to come.

Unidev is proud to have this important relationship for many years and looks forward to continuing to grow our experience and capabilities supporting and deploying Microsoft systems.

Reasons to use a Certified Partner from Microsoft (per Microsoft web site)

Why work with a Microsoft Certified Partner?

• Microsoft Certified Partners have demonstrated expertise. Each Microsoft Certified Partner must employ a minimum number of Microsoft Certified Professionals (MCPs) who have a demonstrated level of technical expertise and the proven ability to deliver solutions featuring Microsoft products. MCPs must pass certification exams developed by Microsoft.
• Microsoft Certified Partners have a broad-range of experience. Microsoft Certified Partners typically offer several areas of technical expertise including infrastructure, networking, office automation, e-commerce, collaboration, business intelligence, and other leading edge disciplines. Microsoft Certified Partner services include consulting, training, implementation, maintenance/support, and hosting services.
• Microsoft Certified Partners have direct support from Microsoft. Microsoft Certified Partners have access to 24 x 7 x 365 support for your project whenever they need additional support from Microsoft.
• Microsoft Certified Partners offer a real world perspective to your technology strategies. Microsoft Certified Partners have been in the business, on average, for more than 5 years. They bring experience to your projects gained through conducting similar projects over many years of service.
• Microsoft Certified Partners are local. With more than 26,000 Microsoft Certified Partner organizations worldwide, there’s a technical expert near you. We’ll help you locate one right now!

Unified Development, Inc. a Chesterfield based provider of Information Technology Consulting Services launched it’s latest web site this week.  The new web site takes into account all of the latest ‘best practices’ for web marketing methods. ”This new site is very content rich and flexible and allows us to easily expand the information we deliver.  In addition, it works very well across a variety of different devices, is multi-lingual capable and ADA compliant” said Greg Alexander, President of Unidev.  Recent court rulings have highlighted the importance of having an ADA compliant site that is much more user friendly for the disabled.

 

The new site greatly expands the resources Unidev provides for potential recruits through a new ‘career center’ section which provides not only job listings but career and employment information and a fast and easy job notification feature.

Unified Development, Inc. a Chesterfield based provider of Information Technology Consulting Services, has recently expanded and announced the opening of a new office at 1415 Elbridge Payne Road, Suite 255, in Chesterfield, Missouri, 63017. Unidev has successfully served its customers for over 16 years by providing a broad range of solutions including software and web design and development, staff augmentation and project and systems maintenance outsourcing. The contact number for the new location is 636.532.4424.

St. Louis, MO – Unified Development, Inc. (Unidev), a St. Louis-based software development and consulting firm, today announced a merger with The Net Impact, LLC, a search engine marketing and web site design firm.

According to Unidev President, Mr. Greg Alexander, the merger joins the significant technology resources and experience of Unidev with the proven creative and internet marketing skills of The Net Impact.  Tommi Davis, President of The Net Impact commented “We’re extremely excited about the merger and the increased technical and internet marketing capabilities we can now offer our client base. Unidev is a dynamic, growing organization. It’s a great fit.”

Over a two-year research and development period, Unidev has developed a strong technical web marketing capability and a proprietary suite of search engine marketing services, including search engine optimization, email marketing, affiliate program management and pay per click management. With a strong emphasis on data collection and statistical analysis, Unidev has been able to significantly improve both search engine rankings and online sales for a number of established businesses on the web.

The addition of The Net Impact brings a real and critical creative capability to Unidev as well as an increased sales and marketing capability. Mark Birsinger, V.P. of Marketing for The Net Impact said “The merger brings all of the vital resources together – a large team of programming professionals as well as the expertise to make web applications visible in the search engines. It’s a full circle approach”.

Unidev, established in 1990, is a premier developer of large scale integrated business solutions, IT outsourcing and consulting services for Fortune 1000 companies.  They are located on the web at www.unidev.com

The Net Impact is an established ten-year-old company that provides internet marketing solutions, web site design services and a comprehensive range of search engine marketing (SEM), web development and e-commerce solutions.  They can be found on the web at www.thenetimpact.com