Software Development Services: 6 Most Important Ones
We are now living in the tech world. There is no denying that the introduction of modern physical devices (e.g. computers or mobile phones) and their accompanied software have made our life easier. Basic manipulation on Paypal can speed up our international payment orders, while calculations on our monthly financial statements will be more precise with the support of Microsoft Excel. Despite bitter controversies over security and other problems from software products, demands for them are always growing. Therefore software development services become widespread along with an annual soar in software providers.
According to Wikipedia, software mainly refers to computer programs. However in this article, this term will be expanded to mobile apps and other technologies that many software agencies now offer. Of course, different vendors will give you different options, yet here are the top six prevalent ones:
1. Custom software development services
Custom software involves the development and design of any products specifically tailored for a single client. It is different from off-the-shelf software (e.g. typically Microsoft Office) which has available features or applications for the mass. Therefore, in some companies like SoftEQ — a Houston-based developer — mobile, web and cloud-based products are included in custom software development services. Meanwhile, other agencies see them as separate services. So this post only regards desktop apps and business intelligence solutions as customized products you can outsource.
Any desktops have apps installed for personal use such as Microsoft Edge or Adobe Photoshop. Yet custom desktop apps I mentioned above are often enterprise software built on three primary operating systems (OS) like Windows, Mac OS and Linux to facilitate business activities. Depending on whether you want a native or cross-platform apps, they will require different technologies such as Python, Objective-C, Electron framework, or Qt platform.
Meanwhile, business intelligence (BI) solutions include all technologies and applications used to collect, analyze and manage business data. Accordingly, a company will have a general overview on behaviors of their customers, estimated revenues and future trends, then making more strategic decisions and avoiding unexpected pitfalls. In addition to some available BI software like Tableau or Sisense, you can outsource more suitable BI products, typically SAP BI/BO services by Prismetric or SAF/AQXE BI services by Segue Technologies.
2. Mobile software development services
As reported by Datare Portal, until April 2020, there are nearly 5 billion Internet users in the world, and 92% of whom use mobile gadgets to go online. Many of mobile development services now are mainly provided to smartphones due to their dominance, yet some top-tier providers (e.g. WillowTree or TechAhead) still give digital solutions for other portable devices such as Apple Watch apps, Apple TV apps or Virtual Reality (VR) game apps on iOS and Android operating systems. Those apps can be native, hybrid or cross-platform as long as they suit your budgets and purposes. Nevertheless, they will also demand plenty of technical expertise in programming languages (Java, Kotlin, Objective-C or Swift) and frameworks (Xamarin, React Native or CoCoa Controls) to build on.
3. Web development services
Many users often think of Google or Amazon as traditional websites. However, in fact, they are differently considered by technology experts as a web portal and a web app respectively instead. Accordingly, web development services can be classified into three key categories: websites, web apps and web portals. Of which, web building services now include:
– Content Management System (CMS) websites
Those websites are built on available platforms such as WordPress, Drupal or Joomla and installed with some customized and advanced features. Many of which are used for e-Commerce, B2C and B2B portals and enterprise solutions.
– Websites built on specific technologies such as PHP, JAVA, Ruby on Rails, Laravel framework, . NET framework or MySQL (open-source database management system).
– Static or dynamic websites
The former contains HTML coded pages with unchanged contents, while the latter allows you to update news and interact with users. However, owing to the less competitiveness of static webs, not many software developers now provide relevant services; instead, they focus more on dynamic web pages, web apps and web portals.
Normally there are a number of sub-services involved in web development packages: back-end, front-end or full-stack development.
Web apps themselves are applications running on web servers and allow more user interactions through shopping orders, photo and video editing, online forms, word processors, spreadsheets or file conversion. Google Doc is such a web app in which you can produce, open and share writings online or even exchange information with others via chatbox.
Meanwhile, web portals are websites specifically designed to collect data and news and different sources, typically search engines (Google or Bing), online forums or emails. Portals will use API (Application Programming Interface) which allow communications between software to search information therein.
4. Cloud computing
When Netflix was faced with a serious database corruption in August of 2008, they made a decision on moving to the cloud in order to operate their video streaming service and other business activities. This migration has attracted more streaming members and expanded its global infrastructure capacity.
The story of Netflix is not new to many businesses. Traditionally, they had to spend too much money on possessing and maintaining their own infrastructure which, in turn, sometimes crash and hardly allow you to access from other devices, let alone the case that all important data in hardware gets lost one day. This is a scenario that no individuals or businesses want to confront. So cloud computing appears as a savior to store and manage your data on the Internet, as well as to allow authorized users to access such databases from any devices. Cloud developers will give digital solutions integrating with cloud storage apps like AWS, Google Cloud or Microsoft Azure.
There are public cloud services such as One Drive or I-Cloud, but you can have software vendors build private ones for your enterprises. Cloud computing can fall into SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) — which is projected to remain the leading cloud model, PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) and IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service).
5. Embedded systems development
When it comes to embedded systems, people often think of the Internet of Things (IoT) technology. IoT services mean bringing physical objects to life and providing them a certain level of intelligence by embedding miniscule chips with them. In the near future, projects on smart house, automation cars or smart healthcare systems will become more familiar to us.
Now IoT applications are primarily given to business, manufacturing and medicine fields, so more respective services also are offered by different outsourcing agencies. IndiaNIC, for instance, has combined IoT and other technologies (e.g. AI-ML or Big Data) for automobiles to track school buses and fleets, for retailers to manage supply chains or inventory, and for households to check water leakages or ensure home security. On a larger scale, their developers support enterprises in managing complicated business processes, saving energy costs or better healthcare services in hospitals and clinics.
6. IT consultancy
The tech world is actually too large, so sometimes it is impossible to know which digital solutions will help boost productivity, save costs and improve user experience. The best way to deal with the problem is by going to software experts for help.
Various outsourcing agencies now provide different IT consultancy processes. Particularly, Codete — a German software provider mainly devizes detailed methods to promote software performance of their clients to the higher level, by determining challenges and opportunities of the existing software development process, then recommending more effective solutions to optimize such a procedure. Meanwhile, Designveloper — a Vietnam-based outsourcing company aims at consulting businesses about suitable tech solutions and detailed estimates before they decide to make any tech products.
All IT firms have a variety of software development services, primarily custom software development services, web and mobile software development services. Identifying your business goals and budgets will be often keys to help you find the right company for your expected tech products.
Designveloper is a software development company based in Vietnam. We offer a wide range of services including customized software development, UI/UX design, cloud and devops service and business consulting. Just contact us to optimize your idea and turn it into a profitable product.
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