Here are some product development resources (White papers, webinars, videos etc.) for your easy reference.
Whitepapers
Right-engineering SaaS: Successfully deploying Software-as-a-Service models
Building SaaS products can be even more complex and time consuming than building entreprise systems. Hence, one needs to be really sure about the engineering aspects of moving to SaaS before making the transition. This paper puts forth some fundamental elements that can be used to right-engineer (not over or under-engineer) your SaaS product. It consolidates the technology strategies to build on-demand products and is the result of helping several ISVs transition to an on-demand environment..
Test Automation ROI Calculator
Performing ROI analysis on automation projects gives an understanding of approximate cost that any organization will be bearing on a particular type of testing. ROI calculations not only helps in determining an upfront on what type of automation an organization wants for the project, but also in choosing the tools and the level of skills that are needed for the testing resources of the project. It is well perceived as a necessary task in the planning process of every project.
Accelerate time-to-market through Framework-driven development
Converting your ideas into software solutions has never been an easy task. When you are running short of time, it becomes even more difficult to come up with a quality product. However, utilizing a Framework-driven approach to development can crash your time-to-market substantially by making use of pre-built components, design decisions and a solid foundation to build upon. This paper features a few enterprise frameworks that will help software vendors (ISVs) enhance their product quality and crash their development time.
Professional Services – The SharePoint Angle
Any professional services organization has a very high need for team collaboration and document management. Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0 and the more advanced Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007, built on WSS 3.0, are versatile technologies that organizations of all sizes can use to increase the efficiency of business processes and improve team productivity. They also provide a platform for building custom web-based business applications that scale easily.
Building successful Consumer Internet Applications
With the increased usage of consumer internet products, many a consumer internet innovation will move into the enterprise. Product companies that don’t incorporate relevant Web 2.0 features into their products run the risk of losing out to the competition. This paper discusses software built in the consumer internet space and addresses how technology and process innovations can be leveraged to develop better and faster software.
Rapid web development with RoR
Major changes are taking place in the way software is being built today, and the timeframes in which it gets built. Ruby-on-Rails (RoR) is an open-source web development framework that supports rapid development, extensive collaboration and has a Web 2.0 focus. This paper discusses the merits and demerits of RoR as a platform of choice for building the next generation of new web applications and products.
SOA directly impacts an ISV’s Bottom-line
The higher the total cost of ownership (TCO) of a software product, the higher is the sales barrier for it. One of the factors that influences the TCO of a product and which is controllable is the complexity of architecture and design of the product in question. By adopting a Service-Oriented approach to your development efforts, you can positively influence your product and bottom-line.
Test Automation Tool Evaluation
Success in any Test Automation effort lies in identifying the right tool for automation. A detailed analysis of various tools must be performed before selecting a tool. This paper will guide you in taking a systematic approach towards tool evaluation. The effort and learning obtained during tool evaluation will in turn help during the execution of the Test Automation project.
A robust SaaS product can be built with a minimalist approach, for example, Tomcat, mySQL, XML, Struts 2.0, POJO and JSP are all it takes to build a SaaS application/product using Java technology. And it can work very well too..
Points of defect creation- Speeding detection and correction in product development
Software product development methodologies try to improve quality by promoting the tactic of testing early and often.
Product Management– The key to success of your product
Software products are conceived when a market gap is identified and a product is conceptualized to address this perceived gap. However, the original vision for a product…
Webinars
Move beyond bugs – Testing solutions for optimizing product quality
Changing business environments need mature testing processes & practices that can guarantee success rather than just cut costs. While Testing has traditionally been regarded as a curative solution, the reality is that it is a preventive medicine that can enhance product capabilities and help meet business objectives.
Join us for a webinar to know how Aspire can help you:
Handle quality challenges at every stage of the SDLC using our IQA approach
Optimize testing process and accelerate releases leveraging our Test Automation Framework – PropelQ
Transform QA processes to plan your budgets effectively
Identify appropriate processes and tools
Gain an insight to our expertise through our success stories
Managing Security Threat in SaaS: Essential “How To’s”
Despite SaaS helping enterprises survive the economic downturn, uncertainties around security issues still seem to hamper SaaS adoption.
This webinar moderated by Aspire Systems featured SaaS experts Alexey Lef, Chief Technical Architect of SciQuest and Jothi Rengarajan, Senior Technical Architect of Aspire Systems who discussed key topics and questions faced by software providers like-
What is your Security policy? How secure is my data? Who can access my data in your company?
How separated is my data from your other customers?
How does your solution address authorization and encryption need?
What kind of physical security measures are being followed?
Click here to view the Presentation
Click here to download the questions answered during the webinar
Profitability: SaaS Versus On-Premise Solutions
SaaS is being increasingly adopted and is even considered a savior model in this economy due to the zero upfront CAPEX for buyers. Still the question remains if SaaS is a profitable model for solution providers? Regardless of the longer sales cycles, is the on-premise solution providing faster break-even?
This webinar moderated by Aspire Systems, where Amy Wohl of Wohl Associates and Alex Ginger, Director of Active Operations Management International, a SaaS provider discussed the two business models, in light of the current economic situation.
Some of key topics discussed were:
Cost factors – developmental, operational and marketing costs
Revenue factors – sales cycle, pricing models, etc.
Benefits/drawbacks of both the business models
Will a hybrid pricing/delivery model provide better benefits?
Click here to view the Presentation
Enterprise Product Frameworks: A sure-fire way to reduce development time, cost & bugs!
“How can I get my product to market quickly and still ensure that quality is intact?” This may seem like a common concern, but it is one that many ISVs (Independent software vendors) of all sizes still grapple with everyday. Product frameworks can be a significant part of the answer to this question.
“Propel” is Aspire Systems’ enterprise product framework, that reduces the time and cost to develop a software product by about 30%. It comes with a pre-built, tested product architecture layer and can help developers focus on solving business issues, instead of worrying about basic design decisions and other cross-concerns.
This webinar will give you an insight into:
How product frameworks can be leveraged to your advantage.
The quality and other indirect benefits of using frameworks.
How Propel can reduce your development time and costs by 30%.
Real-life experience of Ajuba Solutions on how they use Propel to develop their solutions rapidly.
Is (or Why is) SaaS the Survival Strategy in this Down Economy?
Despite the current gloomy economic climate, with IT budgets tightening and layoffs increasing, spending on software-as-a-service continues to grow in enterprise markets. Research from firms such as Gartner, IDC, and Softletter confirm this growth and predict that SaaS market expansion will continue despite the recesson. Why is SaaS continuing to grow while many traditional licensed and on-premise software companies suffer from declining profits and static market share?
This webinar hosted and moderated by Aspire Systems featured noted SaaS industry speakers Merrill R. (Rick) Chapman of Softletter and Richard Dym of OpSource discussing:
Softletter research analyzing increased SaaS adoption
Reasons/Factors influencing the SaaS wave
SaaS prospects/opportunities
The future of SaaS and SaaS companies
Click here to view the Presentation
Software usability: Necessary evil or True differentiator?
The importance of usability engineering in software product development has grown in recent years. This is because many software vendors, software and internet-enabled businesses have begun to realize that the pay-off is huge if software is highly usable and is able to attract and retain its target audience. The converse is also true – a difficult-to-use product finds few takers. Usability has indeed become a differentiator for most successful products.
Usability engineering is an approach that puts the user, rather than the system, at the center of the process. Although the term ‘usability’ has been around for ages, it keeps evolving, along with the technologies that enable it – for example, a website developed in the late 90s and considered highly usable would most likely not meet today’s criteria of being user-friendly. Hence, anyone attempting to build successful software should understand the various thumb-rules of usability while at the same time be able to judge which of them are most vital based on their specific users’ needs and the context of their environment.
This 40 minute session includes:
Fundamental guidelines for improving product usability.
Technology enablers for usability.
The Usability life cycle in product design.
How better usability can boost your sales and lower your support costs.
Managing Agile development : Best practices
Although agile methodologies have become a popular alternative to traditional methods, agile is still relatively new to many software organizations. Even among those who have adopted agile practices, many have not been successful in deriving real value from them. Having a clear understanding of agile engineering and management practices and being able to choose the ones that will deliver value for your specific needs are key to making agile development work for you.
This 45 minute webinar will cover:
The required shift in the development organization’s mindset for moving to agile.
Real world examples of best practices in agile development.
How to make distributed agile development work for you?
Is Test Automation right for you? Do your Math!
Since many organizations consider test automation as the next logical step towards establishing a mature QA program, it becomes imperative for them to understand the initial costs involved in test automation. They can then weigh those costs against the benefits they will avail, post automation.
The first step in this process is to understand the various elements associated in computing the return on investment (ROI) for your test automation efforts.
This 40-minute virtual session will address:
The approach to test automation.
The need for a solid framework that will help companies succeed in their automation efforts.
ROI using other standard automation frameworks vs. ASPTAF (Aspire Test Automation Framework).
How do you optimize Software Test Automation Costs?
When it comes to automated testing, everyone throws around hot buzzwords like “data-driven”, “data flows”, and “error handling”. Do these buzzwords allow you to produce automation that is efficient, maintainable and usable? Above all, what does it take to optimize the costs involved in achieving efficient, maintainable and usable automation?
This is exactly what will be covered in this webinar. Join Aspire Systems and AutomatedQA for this webinar to learn how to optimize your Software Test Automation Costs and how to maximize the benefits of automation.
Key Take-Away:
How to achieve significant savings in your automation initiatives?
How to increase test coverage with less employee overhead?
How does an architected framework for automation development increase efficiency?
How do you improve the usability of automation architecture?
Product Globalization – Is it about Products or Business?
The importance of building globalized products has grown in the recent years. Businesses are forced to rapidly expand beyond their borders towards sustaining extreme growths. This makes it imperative for businesses to get world-ready products that can seamlessly fit across nations.
So, do I need to rebuild the whole product to enable Globalization support?
The answer is a certain NO! The importance of globalization is equally understood by technology vendors thereby providing a considerable set of features and provisions that can ease the efforts of globalization. Hence, it is very much possible to achieve globalization through re-engineering the product.
Unfortunately, the complexity of globalization is often assumed to be limited to just text translation, resulting in missed milestones, cost and effort overruns.
Join us for this webinar, where we talk about:
Various aspects of globalization in a product
Considerations and steps for enabling globalization support
Challenges in testing globalization support
Best practices to achieve cost effective translation
Pitfalls that you need to avoid.
SaaS – Don’t Over-engineer your product!
Saas is gaining ground with Independent Software Vendors as a must-have delivery model. Although much is said about the low costs of entry for users and subscription revenues for providers, the viability of SaaS really stems from the fact that users simply prefer SaaS applications.
However, ISVs face significant amount of challenges in adopting the SaaS model. The truth though, is that it is not necessary to over-develop or over-architect your product to move to SaaS. Instead, you can opt for a minimalist approach, through reuse of existing assets and identification of elements of your product, which are absolutely critical for your customers and for generating revenue in your initial launch. This approach will ensure that your costs are contained, your key customers’ needs are immediately satisfied and that your application is effectively and successfully launched sooner rather than later.
Product Testing is more than bugs – A consultative approach
Product Testing is quite different from plain-vanilla Application Testing. For instance, software products need to work on a variety of environments and are expected to work on supported configurations of all supported platforms. It also need to be intuitive to use, and work in a similar manner to other products in its domain. Software products tend to have regular upgrades; additionally the scope of the product also changes with respect to changing market requirements, and this complicates testing further. This requires specialized skill sets to ensure quality products and reduce re-working costs on a product.
In this webinar, you will learn:
How to enhance the quality and stability of your product while simultaneously reducing the testing time?
How to reduce the cost of ownership of your product?
How to de-risk product management and focus on innovation?
How to increase test-coverage on your product?
Success stories and real-life examples on how these have been achieved.
Should ISVs offer a SaaS version of their software?
Offering software on-demand is gaining momentum and this is evident from the fact that more vendors are opting for On-demand solutions instead of On-premise solutions. This shift in trend is the new dimension in offering software solutions and it has just entered the mainstream.
This webinar will focus on vital issues in shifting to an On-demand model along with real case studies, current industry statistics, and expert advice from both the management and technical perspective.
The webinar will cover the following:
How to effectively support both On-Demand and On-Premise Solutions?
How to reach new markets and manage competition with a SaaS offering?
Is it necessary to rewrite the software or can I transform existing software?
How to choose a hosting provider that is reliable and affordable?
How to overcome common objections from clients regarding SaaS solutions?
How trusted partners can help to further evaluate if SaaS is right; and if they can help, how to accelerate time-to-market?
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"Online communities, iterative methodologies and software scalability" with Andres Camacho - Vice President of Engineering at Vinfolio 
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