Monday, January 17, 2011

uniPaaS Jet Released as RAWcross America Tour Reaches Nashville, Tennessee Software Development Community


The much anticipated release of uniPaaS Jet has finally arrived. Yes, that’s right, uniPaaS Jet has been officially released. With uniPaaS Jet, solo programmers seeking to build single-user software applications for desktop or Internet deployment now have unlimited free development and deployment with what has long been widely regarded as the most productive business software application platform available.

But suddenly there is something new and different. A hipper, cooler edge to business software development. Rich Internet Applications (RIA) comes standard out-of-the-box with uniPaaS so you are already looking at a cloud-tastic environment with client-server roots. And with all the new resources supporting the new programmer in the process of learning how to program in uniPaaS Jet, you have a launchpad for success. We’re talking about hundreds of instructional videos, sample programs and tutorials to help you master all aspects of business software development with uniPaaS.

It’s amazing to see the RAWcross America tour, which has helped us to highlight software development communities across the country rolling through Nashville, Tennessee. Of course, you think of Tennessee and you think of music. Organizations like the Ray Charles Foundation use uniPaaS to track digital music rights. In Tennessee, Trilegiant group has had a long history developing Magic applications for tracking affinity marketing data. These systems touch the lives of millions of people bringing a better membership experience to millions across the USA. And of course, there are all sorts of businesses in Nashville running Magic applications built in uniPaaS and integrated with the iBOLT Integration Suite. When all those country music stars want their hair to look great, where do they go? Regis Salons are integrated by Magic Software. When they want their publicity photos printed, who do they call? Ritz Imaging, Ritz Camera and Wolf Camera have locations all across Tennessee backed by the power of Magic Software’s application platform and integration technology. And of course, nearly all the major newspapers in Tennessee including The Tennessean and The Commercial Appeal have Magic applications managing the advertising insert process and associated tracking.

Software developers seeking programming jobs in Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville and other cities in Tennessee should take a close look at uniPaaS Jet and the enterprise level uniPaaS solutions used in major commercial software applications all across the region. With simplified online learning and straightforward development procedures, developers have the ability to create business applications that are reliable, scalable and secure.

The RAWcross America tour rolls into AUSTIN, Texas next on Wednesday, January 19th where they will be at Venue 222 (Formerly known as Aces Lounge) from 7-9 pm. The venue is located at 222 East 6th Street in Austin just a few blocks from the river. If you are an artist wanting to learn more about RAWArtists.org and attend the mixer contact Meghan@RAWartists.org / Austin@RAWartists.org. If you are interested in becoming a computer programmer and want to learn beginning programming with a free tool from a commercial vendor then please visit the uniPaaS Jet download page.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Philadelphia Software Development and Programming Community

The RAWcross America tour rolled through Philadelphia as it continues its amazing coast-to-coast and back tour of the United States. The RAWmobile, complete with uniPaaS Jet and Magic Software logos up and down the sides of the car, managed to escape the snowstorms in New York and make its way to Philadelphia, the “city of brotherly love.” In addition to being known for cheese steak sandwiches, Rocky and the Philadelphia Phillies, Philadelphia sits in the middle of the “programmers alley” that stretches from New Jersey to Maryland.
In the early days of the history of uniPaaS in the United States, the United States Army started programming in Magic at the Tobyhanna Army Depot. Tobyhanna Army Depot (TYAD) is the largest, full-service electronics maintenance facility in the Department of Defense (DoD). TYAD’s mission is total sustainment, including design, manufacture, repair and overhaul of hundreds of electronic systems that include satellite terminals, radio and radar systems, telephones, electro-optics, night vision and anti-intrusion devices, airborne surveillance equipment, navigational instruments, electronic warfare and guidance and control systems for tactical missiles. TYAD is the DoD’s recognized leader in the areas of automated test equipment, systems integration and downsizing of electronics systems. The Army has designated Tobyhanna as its Center of Industrial and Technical Excellence for C4ISR and Electronics, Avionics and Missile Guidance and Control. The Air Force has designated TYAD as its Technical Source of Repair for command, control, communications and intelligence systems. At Tobyhanna, they understood the need for developing software applications quickly and with maximum degree of operational integrity, transactional integrity and performance. I don’t know when it all began really, but it was at least as far back as 1993 that these programmer jobs in the greater Philadelphia became available on the Magic platform (now known as uniPaaS).
The uniPaaS programming tradition continues today at companies like Guardian Life Insurance Company of America. Guardian is one of the largest mutual life insurance companies in America, with 150 years of experience in providing diversified financial solutions, including life insurance, disability income insurance, retirement services, employee benefits, and investments. From the Northeastern Regional Home Office in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Guardian develops a key core financial services system on the uniPaaS application platform. The Guardian Insurance & Annuity Company, Inc., offers a range of annuities that are designed to help long-term investors as they seek to accumulate and manage their assets through professionally managed investments options.
And of course, one of Magic Software’s premier cloud computing sites is located in a Philadelphia suburb s well: Clinical Financial Services. Clinical Financial Services (CFS), located in the heart of the “Pharma-Belt” in suburban Philadelphia, is the industry’s only company focused exclusively on the financial management of clinical trials. Through unique business process outsourcing capabilities, the company empowers sponsors, clinical research organizations, and investigative sites to transform the way they handle the complex financial activities required to initiate and successfully complete clinical trials. The Company’s core competencies include an in-depth knowledge and understanding of clinical trial budgets and agreements, contract negotiation and administration, and finance and accounting specific to clinical trials.
CFS could see that existing clinical trial financial processes are fundamentally flawed in a number of ways. Lack of technology integration and standard business processes meant that little or no invoicing was performed properly, insufficient financial controls were in place, transaction processing costs were high, and investigator sites were feeling the cash flow pinch. CFS understood that by making better use of the Internet, improving integration of disparate systems and standardizing business processes wherever possible, they could eliminate these problems. In short, the lack of integrated technologies makes it difficult, if not impossible, to properly calculate grant dollars earned and efficiently administer payments to sites.
Glen Slater, CIO of CFS, took on the task of identifying the best architecture for the solution. Rather than trying to build every element of the solution from scratch, CFS chose to focus on its core competency of e-Payment processing and matched that with best-of-breed solutions for their back-end business and customer relationship management solutions. Slater knew that if he utilized as much on demand and service-oriented architecture as possible, agility and integration would be maximized. CFS has overcome the challenges by developing a highly controlled and fully integrated payment processing environment that connects their proprietary grant application with SAP, Salesforce.com and other technologies using Magic Software's iBOLT Integration Suite. Implemented later in 2006, the new sophisticated and highly integrated business process architecture allows CFS to pay investigative sites both quickly and accurately by means of electronic funds transfer (EFT). Along with the funds CFS provides detailed electronic remittance and statement information. The solution also complies with the Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium (CDISC) standard and is entirely “cloud based.”
The iBOLT Integration Suite automates business processes related to invoice payment, forecasting and other key processes between CFS e-Payment Application, SAP Business One, Salesforce.com and EMC's Documentum eRoom Content Management System.
These are just a few of the “Philadelphia Stories” that come to mind in a community and region with a long history of using Magic Software Enterprises application development platform and integration suite.
For those following the RAWcross America tour, the next stop is in NASHVILLE, TN on Saturday, January 15th at the Mercy Lounge. Contact: Amanda@RAWartists.org / Nashville@RAWartists.org if you are an artist wanting to learn more about RAW or just a curious programmer who wants to see the RAWmobile.

Philadelphia Software Development and Programming Community

The RAWcross America tour rolled through Philadelphia as it continues its amazing coast-to-coast and back tour of the United States. The RAWmobile, complete with uniPaaS Jet and Magic Software logos up and down the sides of the car, managed to escape the snowstorms in New York and make its way to Philadelphia, the “city of brotherly love.” In addition to being known for cheese steak sandwiches, Rocky and the Philadelphia Phillies, Philadelphia sits in the middle of the “programmers alley” that stretches from New Jersey to Maryland.
In the early days of the history of uniPaaS in the United States, the United States Army started programming in Magic at the Tobyhanna Army Depot. Tobyhanna Army Depot (TYAD) is the largest, full-service electronics maintenance facility in the Department of Defense (DoD). TYAD’s mission is total sustainment, including design, manufacture, repair and overhaul of hundreds of electronic systems that include satellite terminals, radio and radar systems, telephones, electro-optics, night vision and anti-intrusion devices, airborne surveillance equipment, navigational instruments, electronic warfare and guidance and control systems for tactical missiles. TYAD is the DoD’s recognized leader in the areas of automated test equipment, systems integration and downsizing of electronics systems. The Army has designated Tobyhanna as its Center of Industrial and Technical Excellence for C4ISR and Electronics, Avionics and Missile Guidance and Control. The Air Force has designated TYAD as its Technical Source of Repair for command, control, communications and intelligence systems. At Tobyhanna, they understood the need for developing software applications quickly and with maximum degree of operational integrity, transactional integrity and performance. I don’t know when it all began really, but it was at least as far back as 1993 that these programmer jobs in the greater Philadelphia became available on the Magic platform (now known as uniPaaS).
The uniPaaS programming tradition continues today at companies like Guardian Life Insurance Company of America. Guardian is one of the largest mutual life insurance companies in America, with 150 years of experience in providing diversified financial solutions, including life insurance, disability income insurance, retirement services, employee benefits, and investments. From the Northeastern Regional Home Office in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Guardian develops a key core financial services system on the uniPaaS application platform. The Guardian Insurance & Annuity Company, Inc., offers a range of annuities that are designed to help long-term investors as they seek to accumulate and manage their assets through professionally managed investments options.
And of course, one of Magic Software’s premier cloud computing sites is located in a Philadelphia suburb s well: Clinical Financial Services. Clinical Financial Services (CFS), located in the heart of the “Pharma-Belt” in suburban Philadelphia, is the industry’s only company focused exclusively on the financial management of clinical trials. Through unique business process outsourcing capabilities, the company empowers sponsors, clinical research organizations, and investigative sites to transform the way they handle the complex financial activities required to initiate and successfully complete clinical trials. The Company’s core competencies include an in-depth knowledge and understanding of clinical trial budgets and agreements, contract negotiation and administration, and finance and accounting specific to clinical trials.
CFS could see that existing clinical trial financial processes are fundamentally flawed in a number of ways. Lack of technology integration and standard business processes meant that little or no invoicing was performed properly, insufficient financial controls were in place, transaction processing costs were high, and investigator sites were feeling the cash flow pinch. CFS understood that by making better use of the Internet, improving integration of disparate systems and standardizing business processes wherever possible, they could eliminate these problems. In short, the lack of integrated technologies makes it difficult, if not impossible, to properly calculate grant dollars earned and efficiently administer payments to sites.
Glen Slater, CIO of CFS, took on the task of identifying the best architecture for the solution. Rather than trying to build every element of the solution from scratch, CFS chose to focus on its core competency of e-Payment processing and matched that with best-of-breed solutions for their back-end business and customer relationship management solutions. Slater knew that if he utilized as much on demand and service-oriented architecture as possible, agility and integration would be maximized. CFS has overcome the challenges by developing a highly controlled and fully integrated payment processing environment that connects their proprietary grant application with SAP, Salesforce.com and other technologies using Magic Software's iBOLT Integration Suite. Implemented later in 2006, the new sophisticated and highly integrated business process architecture allows CFS to pay investigative sites both quickly and accurately by means of electronic funds transfer (EFT). Along with the funds CFS provides detailed electronic remittance and statement information. The solution also complies with the Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium (CDISC) standard and is entirely “cloud based.”
The iBOLT Integration Suite automates business processes related to invoice payment, forecasting and other key processes between CFS e-Payment Application, SAP Business One, Salesforce.com and EMC's Documentum eRoom Content Management System.
These are just a few of the “Philadelphia Stories” that come to mind in a community and region with a long history of using Magic Software Enterprises application development platform and integration suite.
For those following the RAWcross America tour, the next stop is in NASHVILLE, TN on Saturday, January 15th at the Mercy Lounge. Contact: Amanda@RAWartists.org / Nashville@RAWartists.org if you are an artist wanting to learn more about RAW or just a curious programmer who wants to see the RAWmobile.

Monday, January 10, 2011

New York Software Development and Programming Community: “No Words”


Call it the Big Apple, Gotham, the City that Never Sleeps. Everybody knows that New York City is a major center of just about everything. And while most people will always think of Wall Street, Madison Avenue or Fashion Week first, by its sheer size if nothing else, New York City is also home to a very sizable software development community. Magic Software’s uniPaaS Jet sponsorship of RAWcross America arrives in New York City today. It may be one little red SUV in a sea of yellow taxis, and no all the honking horns and shout outs may not be to encourage us forward in our journey across America, nevertheless, uniPaaS runs vital mission critical applications in New York.


United Nations. Some people even call New York City “the capital of the world.” The presence of the United Nations building in New York may have a lot to do with that. And yes, uniPaaS is installed right there in the United Nations Building, running the United Nations custom-developed software for multilingual document management and legislative tracking system for the planet’s largest and most important international organization. The United Nations understood that application platforms which enable encoding of business functionality into Metadata offer a number of business benefits to the challenges faced by enterprises today.

Wall Street. Securities trading experiences incredibly high transaction levels everyday. And the business of tracking trades, trading settlements and auditing them is no trivial matter. That’s why Transaction Auditing Group (TAG) uses Magic Software’s technology to automate the flow of transaction information for best execution trading analysis from every single securities market in the United States including the New York Stock Exchange.

Founded in 1996, TAG pioneered the first standardized execution quality TAG Report by creating ground-breaking Industry Average Benchmarks. Since that time, TAG has been developing numerous products including innovative and powerful Execution Analytics Solutions measuring: quality of execution, competition between market participants (Execution venues, Brokers), US Best Execution Compliance reporting, Transaction Cost Analysis, and more. Our proven track record for custom analysis was created by the flexibility of our proprietary TAG IQ Engine which will tackle any size custom request. TAG helps market participants to take control of Best Execution, Trading Costs, Market Fragmentation, and Regulatory Obligation in this quickly evolving global landscape.

Why Application Development Managers in New York Software Development Companies Choose uniPaaS. Technical leaders in software solution providers face a daunting challenge in keeping pace with infrastructure technology changes and user demand for new services, while maximizing productivity of their development teams. The high cost of hiring new talent to master new tools and technology can kill profit while asking existing developers to learn new tools and technologies often creates stress in an environment where resources are already highly constrained. An alternative approach to traditional development and deployment of application solutions utilizes metadata-driven application platforms. This approach enables development which is abstracted from the underlying technology, which means infrastructure can be modernized without impacting applications. For solution providers using Magic Software's uniPaaS, perhaps the biggest productivity gains come from simplified development together with business users and the requirement for only one skill-set for both client-side Web, Mobile and server-side development. And now with uniPaaS Jet’s amazing one-developer-one user-infinite sales approach, a whole industry of small application development houses creating custom business software in New York City are emerging alongside established New York City software development companies like New Era Solutions.

RAWartists.org will be at Snap in NEW YORK CITY Monday, January 10th from 6 - 8 pm. Snap is located at 248 W 14th St in New York. Artists and art organizations wishing to attend the event should contact Dawn@RAWartists.org or Newyork@RAWartists.org. And if you are a programmer and just want to drop in and buy them a cold one, I'm sure they wouldn't mind.

Next stop: Philly!

Friday, January 7, 2011

The Chicago Programming Community Welcomes the uniPaaS Jet RAWcross America Tour


The uniPaaS Jet RAWcross America tour rolls into Chicago today. Chicago’s people reflect both the pioneer spirit and the prudent decision making that caused this region to thrive and Chicago to emerge in the 19th Century as the business capital of America’s heartland. Despite the region’s image for pork bellies and soybeans, the enterprise software development community in Chicago and across the Midwest is comprised of developers from some of America’s largest businesses.

In 1990, a function point analyst at the Allstate Life Insurance Company of Chicago, Illinois performed a function point analysis of a Magic application known as the LANmark system. They validated more than 60,000 function points in the application. At $1,000 per function point according to the International Software Benchmarking Standards Group, that makes the application worth in excess of $60,000,000. In other words, that’s how much it should have cost to build this massive life insurance administration system. But because the programs were created with the application platform known today as uniPaaS, it took six developers only 18 months at a cost of less than $2,000,000. That’s a $58,000,000 savings over traditional methods. And as reported in the book PROFIT, Cybertek, EDS, and Tracor Computing had all failed in previous attempts to create the same system. Each one spent more than $30,000,000 and then simply stopped trying. Perhaps this story will bring some perspective to the idea that uniPaaS Jet is “just” a single developer version. Just think of the kind of complex applications that a single developer can create with such a productive platform. As discussed elsewhere, metadata-driven development methodologies are the key to this productivity. What does that mean? Simply that the uniPaaS application platform eliminates “low level” programming and achieves the ideal balance between simplicity and capability. Art Pennington’s well documented story about the success of Magic Software’s application platform in the annuities and life insurance industry had its birth in the State of Illinois. Three years after Allstate performed this analysis they became a publicly traded company. Today, Allstate is a Fortune 100 Company with assets of more than $133 billion. Allstate, you’re in good hands.

Across the state another mega Magic Software customer, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), the $63 billion agribusiness giant with 29,000 employees, created its own logistics management system for its seed division. ADM has a fleet of 7 ocean going vessels, 700 trucks, 1600 trailers, 1700 barges and 24,700 railroad cars. That’s a lot of mobile assets to track and manage.

After RAWcross America finishes their meetup in Chicago they will be on to the Big Apple: New York City.

CHICAGO, IL
Saturday, January 8th @ 7 - 9 pm
Vertigo Sky Lounge @ Dana Hotel (2 West Erie | Chicago)
Contact: April@RAWartists.org / Chicago@RAWartists.org

NEW YORK CITY, NYC
Monday, January 10th @ 6 - 8 pm
Snap (248 W 14th St | New York)
Contact: Dawn@RAWartists.org / Newyork@RAWartists.org

*PROFIT (Arlington Heights, Illinois: Profit Research Institute, 2007, p. 7-8).

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Colorado Software Development Community Is More than 500 Miles Away from Home for RAWcross America Crew

Do art and programming mix? Shay Tochner thinks so. Not only is he a guru in uniPaaS programming and all things UNIX and Linux, he is also a great musician. His group backs up Maya Johanna Menachem in this rendition of 500 Miles. Which reminds me that the uniPaaS Jet RAWcross America Tour is trekking through the ice and snow more than 500 miles away from home as it makes its way to Denver, epicenter of the Colorado Software Development Community.


Magic Software Enterprises has sponsored the RAWcross America tour of an amazing arts organization known as RAWartists.org. Along the way from city to city the awesome crew of emerging artists of RAWartists.org are also filming a documentary, creating a photo journal and of course meeting with artists and art organizations all across the country.

Their vehicle is wrapped with huge uniPaaS Jet logos and the Magic Software logos as well. As they crisscross the country in the middle of winter they are shooting video of the RAWmobile vehicle in front of landmarks, Magic customers, and other random places. All with the thought of providing the uniPaaS Jet marketing team a huge archive of material to work with in producing promotional materials.

Denver Software Development Community Highlighted by Awesome Programmers
Denver is a great place for them to stop because of the strong tradition of uniPaaS development in Colorado. The Colorado Department of Corrections made use of our technology part of a state standard several years ago when they adopted a modified version of Sleuth Software for use statewide.

And of course, we couldn’t talk about the Greater Denver software development community without mentioning Burt Technologies or as they are sometimes called: Burt Mountain. Burt Technologies, Inc., are the developers of the BURT System family of packaging & distribution software solutions used in the newspaper industry. Nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Evergreen, Colorado, they have developed a reputation for providing high quality software and support services for packaging & distribution since 1985. Their products and services are used by 10 of the top 20 Sunday newspapers, and 10 of the top 20 daily newspapers in the United States including the Denver Newspaper Agency which publishes the Denver Post. The Denver Post and their advertisers rely on Burt Technologies uniPaaS-based applications to manage advertising insertions for more than a million readers and subscribers.

We should also mention a great Magic Software customer named Ace Solutions, Inc. that makes software for independent automobile dealers. These solutions include: F&I software (finance and inventory,) web sites, credit bureau reporting interface for Buy Here/Pay Here customers, general office software support and related services. ht

If mobile software development is more to your liking, you’ll find the folks at Escape Velocity Systems have an exciting solution called O2 Mobile Warehouse. Developed specifically for Sage MAS 500 ERP accounting software with real-time views of your inventory, O2 Mobile Warehouse is a manufacturing inventory management software that allows you to fully utilize the power of Sage MAS 500 ERP's warehouse management module.

uniPaaS applications tend to automate the hard work of business data analysis and reporting. Media Database Solutions is another member of the software development community in Colorado that offers uniPaaS applications. Their flagship software application called MDS for MSOs is designed to assist media companies such as Cable and Satellite Operators in the calculation of fees owed to networks. These calculations are based on contracts between the media provider and the network and can often be extremely complicated. MDS for MSOs brings this complexity under control by systematically organizing the data into a database and processing the fees based on the rules in the contracts.

If you are an artist and you’d like to catch up with RAWcross America in Denver, here’s the scoop: RAWcross America will be in DENVER this Thursday, January 6th, 2011 from 6 - 8 pm at the (get this) Jet Hotel Lounge which is at 1612 Wazee Street in Denver. For additional info you may contact: Mike.b@RAWartists.org / Denver@RAWartists.org.

And if you are looking for a better way to program then check out uniPaaS Jet as a great starting place for creating Magic applications. It’s never been easier to download, learn and create applications with uniPaaS than it is now that the uniPaaS Jet is available. uniPaaS is a worthwhile platform to consider because application platforms which enable encoding of business functionality into Metadata offer a number of business benefits to the challenges faced by enterprises today.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Seattle Programming Community and Seattle Arts Community Greet RAWcross America


The Seattle programming community can see the uniPaaS Jet RAWmobile as the Seattle Arts Community is the next stop on the road to greet RAWcross America. For those who have not been keeping up, Magic Software Enterprises has sponsored the RAWcross America tour of the organization RAWartists.org and the Magic Software and uniPaaS Jet logos are prominently displayed on the Dodge Journey that is carrying the RAWcross America team across the United States on their promotional tour.

RAWcross America completes its mission in Portland this afternoon from 2 - 4 pm at Stumptown Coffee (128 Southwest 3rd Avenue | Portland) and then rolls onto Seattle, Washington Monday, January 3rd for a meet and greet at the Faire Gallery Cafe-Bar (1351 East Olive Way | Seattle) from 6:30-8:30 p.m.

I am not surprised that artists choose to live in places like Portland and Seattle. The Pacific Northwest is one of the most scenic parts of the country affording amazing mountain vistas, towering evergreen trees, crystal clear lakes and abundant wildlife sightings. It is essential to have a camera on hand for a journey through this part of the country. Of course, if anything goes wrong with the photographic equipment during the RAWcross America tour or if the RAWcross America team just feels the urge to get some photos printed from their digital SDs they can walk into a Ritz Camera and Imaging Center to do their business. Magic Software’s technology has recently been implemented by the Ritz IT department to help integrate software applications. The RITZ IT department is headquartered all the way over in Beltsville, Maryland. I love this photo of the Farmer's Market in Seattle, taken by my friend Terry Read ((c)2011, Terry Read, shown with permission).

When one thinks of programming in the State of Washington, the topic of Microsoft immediately comes to mind. They certainly employ most of the programmers in that state. But there is actually a large software development community in Seattle and across the State of Washington that is not employed by Microsoft. Puget Sound is certainly one of the most prominent features of the geography of the State of Washington. It separates Seattle and surrounding communities making businesses like ferries and water taxis a common sight in the area.

One of the more interesting independent software vendor applications running on the uniPaaS application platform is CabritaTrek by Cabrita Software in Snohomish, Washington Cabrita™ TREK is one of Cabrita Software’s flagship applications. It is a customizable software application designed to make managing and operating air taxis, commuter airlines and large transport carriers easier. These local airlines make getting around the Sound and beyond more convenient than ever.
Of course the State of Washington itself is a big uniPaaS customer with applications run by courts, law enforcement and detention facilities statewide. Another big name in the State of Washington is Boeing, and of course they use uniPaaS applications from Dove Tree Canyon Software as well as other home-grown Magic applications.

Following the stop in Seattle, Washington, the RAWcross America tour will head to Denver. And so we’ll be talking about the Denver Computer Software Programming Community next.