Sitesmith, a Microsoft Certified Partner based in Cape Town, recently purchased Rational software in excess of R500 000 from Software Futures, a wholly owned subsidiary of MGX.
Sitesmith specialises in multi-tiered Web application development, with specific focus on business applications delivering value and rich functionality via a browser. Its clients include Old Mutual Employee Benefits and iSiza Sports, a sports IT company that lists SARFU as a major client.
Bernard O`Flynn, Director at Sitesmith, said: "We spent a few months doing intensive research into software engineering industry best practices, including component development, requirements management, change management and automated testing. We kept bumping up against Rational everywhere we turned. On further investigation and after an extensive trial period, we determined that Rational offered the best suite of products for managing the software engineering process."
The products selected by Sitesmith included the Rational Team Unifying Platform, Rational AnalystStudio, Rational DevelopmentStudio and Rational TeamTest.
O`Flynn continued: "Our clients demand that IT projects come in on time and on budget - something that happens less than 15% of the time in the IT industry. With the Rational Unified Process, we are able to keep ourselves aligned with leading companies and thinkers on software engineering practices and methodologies. It provides a knowledge base of articles, documents and templates that help us manage our projects successfully."
Gerry van der Helde, director at Software Futures, said: "With the tight integration in the Rational Suites between the source control, change management and integrated testing, Sitesmith has already saved at least one man-month in the first two months since installing the products. The expectation is to enable the company to save at least one man-month for every six months of ongoing work during the project cycle. Rational Rose`s forward and reverse engineering allows Sitesmith to respond quickly to requests for changes from clients and deliver work in a considerably shorter time.
"UML allows them to communicate efficiently with their clients so there are no misunderstandings on what is in scope and what is out of scope - a constant source of tension between vendor and client on IT projects."
Rational`s Requisite Pro allows the company to manage project requirements and ensures that all the work is aligned to key stakeholders requests. By tracking change requests and how these changes affect original requirements, Sitesmith has the assurance that the project will deliver the business benefits it was commissioned for.
The Rational Test Manager and Rational
Robot allows them to develop test cases and scripts to test and verify code as it is written. As the project develops and code changes, hundreds of test cases can be re-run to ensure bugs don`t creep in as the complexity grows - something that could not possibly be done manually.
Mark Erni, Sitesmith`s Development Director, said: "Without the Rational suite of products, we would have an increasingly difficult time managing and delivering on software projects. Our projects are becoming increasingly bigger and more complex, with more stakeholders and more systems to integrate. Managing all these requirements, technical issues and business rules using standard productivity software is just not an option anymore.
"The only way to satisfy these requirements it to design and develop in a component based manner; the only way to manage component based development is through a tight management suite. The days of isolated system design, and ad hoc planning are over. With a good component-based design, the Rational Suite, and an iterative approach to development, we can accommodate client changes while delivering the next piece of business functionality.
"With our focus being on web based business applications, we find that more and more companies require their bespoke software solutions to manage complex business relationships across multiple systems and for these to be available from anywhere in the world.
"Our understanding of these
complexities, coupled with our practical and proven experience, and our good project delivery record with clients is complemented well by our acquisition of a set of tools like the Rational Suite - it means that we can stay in front as leaders in this field. As we move into Microsoft`s next release of Visual Studio .Net, we are confident that Rational`s support and integration will enable Sitesmith to deliver even better business value in the future."
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MGX listed in the Information Technology sector of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in 1995 and has, during its five-year history as a listed company delivered consistent growth to shareholders. MGX was ranked 8th in the Sunday Times top 100 companies for 2000.
MGX has operations in SA, Botswana, Australia, the UK and the US and is grouped into five focused strategic business units, which have strong operational and strategic synergies.
The underlying theme to what MGX provides is the existence of business information and the need to manage and deliver that information through all the applications available to business users. The rapid growth of the "information age" has resulted in an enormous amount of information in constant circulation, and the challenge is to help businesses make decisions and act swiftly on that information, in order to be successful in their chosen markets.
This is what MGX means by Information Rich Business Solutions. To deliver Information Rich Business Solutions, MGX has created a group of companies that can create and implement effective solutions to business users in any sector or industry, anywhere in the world. MGX`s ability to deliver centres around its core competencies, its dedication to innovation, its commitment to attract and retain the best talent in the industry who are passionate about what they do and its fierce focus on customer needs.
For more information, visit www.mgxgroup.com.
Sitesmith
Sitesmith is an Internet specialist that architects and implements e-commerce, e-business and Web-based business applications.
Sitesmith`s team consults on e-business and e-commerce developments and will translate your ideas into an appropriate technical systems blueprint, roadmap, costing and implementation plan for your business venture.
As a Microsoft Certified Partner, it has extensive experience in the MS .Net Servers, including MS Commerce Server 2000, MS SQL Server 2000, MS Exchange Server 2000, MS BizTalk Server 2000, MS Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2000 and MS Application Centre 2000. It also has extensive experience in MS Site Server, MS Site Server Commerce Edition, MS Internet Information Server, MS Transaction Server, VisualBasic, ASP, COM+, XML and XSLT, MS SQL Server 7 and Windows 2000 Server.
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