FutureWorks, a subsidiary of Software Futures, an MGX company, recently attained Microsoft Gold Certified Partner status in the category E-Commerce Solutions.
With the certification, Software Futures, already a Microsoft Certified Partner for the past four years, attained a higher level of accreditation, which reflects its commitment and expertise in building and delivering e-commerce solutions around Microsoft technologies. This status now sees Software Futures as one of only four players in the e-commerce arena to achieve this rare and highly prized certification.
Derek Hughes, Managing Director of Software Futures and Director of FutureWorks, says by attaining Gold Certification, the company has achieved one of its short-term business goals and become a recognised Microsoft software factory. He believes that a passion for innovation and technology, customer service, technical excellence, and most importantly, the art and science of software development has earned them the certification.
"We value our partnerships, be it with customers, suppliers or international experts", says Hughes. "That is one of the reasons why the Microsoft Gold Certified Partner program is so attractive to us. Through our partnership with Microsoft, we can now leverage our expert knowledge and deliver an even higher quality service to our customers."
Paul Mare, managing director of FutureWorks, says this certification assists the company with its future plans. "The work that we traditionally do is custom development work, specifically in the insurance and banking industries. In the insurance industry these have been core insurance systems such as policy administration and claims systems while in the banking arena we have supplied supplementary systems such as loyalty points systems and customer relationship management systems - any type of system that surrounds the core banking solutions.
"Our plans are to source other product offerings that surround our service offerings. Custom development will still remain very much a core part of our business but we are beginning to offer new solutions.
"One of the most significant of these ideas is to use solutions by Microsoft Great Plains and also Microsoft BizTalk Server as very clever building blocks around which we will build more complex solutions," says Mare. "We are growing our BizTalk competence at a rapid rate and we believe this to be an integral part of our business strategy moving forward."
Mare says the company will be actively seeking projects where it can offer a customisation service to the high end of the existing financial services market applying Microsoft applications such as BizTalk, Great Plains solutions and standard Microsoft technology such as SQL 2000, Windows 2000 and COM+ as well as .NET Web services offerings.
"We already have two projects using Web services in production at two of SA's leading corporate organisations, ensuring we are well positioned to become the prime partner for .NET development here in SA in our chosen markets," says Mare.
"Software Futures is increasingly winning Microsoft business in the enterprise based on their outstanding ability to create and deliver effective, innovative, high-quality customer solutions based on Microsoft technology," says Vanessa Edwards, partner manager at Microsoft. "Our Gold Certified Partners are among our greatest assets, and we look forward to working together with Software Futures and FutureWorks to enable Microsoft's .NET vision to become a reality."
Software Futures concentrates on developing extended value-added solutions in the business intelligence and business-to-business arena, targeting the financial services, retail and manufacturing markets. The company's key competencies are software development and project management to world-class standards. Applying best practices and leading technologies enables Software Futures to take any bespoke development through its complete development cycle, using coarse-grained components to deliver custom software solutions that provide real value to customers.
Software Futures' vision is to continue providing world-class solutions to Its customers and to be recognised in the top 25% of all players in the Microsoft space worldwide.
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The software solution business of MGX is SA's leader in the application of best practices for software development and implementation. With a staff of 500, it is one of the largest and most successful development teams in SA, and enjoys a strong leadership position in component-based development and global best practices, applications implementation and systems integration.
For more information, visit www.softwarefutures.com
MGX
MGX listed in the IT 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
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