Cost Effective Software Development for Multiple OS Platforms

MetaDesign Solutions offers cross platform software development services across a variety of operating systems, including Windows, Mac, UNIX and Linux.

• Mac Development – MetaDesign Solutions can develop software applications for Mac OS 7.5 to the latest version of Mac OS X, including classic, carbon and native Mac OS environments.

• Windows Development– MetaDesign Solutions can develop software applications that run on any Windows platform.

• UNIX / Linux Development – MetaDesign Solutions can develop software applications for any variety of UNIX or Linux platforms.

Design and Development

Given the breadth of our development abilities, MetaDesign Solutions has developed a cross-platform development framework that allows us to effectively research and develop innovative and cost-effective solutions for our customers. The following general steps are typically involved in cross platform software design and development :-

Platform Research

MetaDesign’s design team will research all the platforms for which applications are to be developed and determine the strengths and weaknesses of each. We will then ascertain the best corresponding approach for the cross platform software development, given the required application functionality. Customer interaction is encouraged during the research phase to ensure that all parties agree to an optimal course of action.

Shared Code Approach

MetaDesign’s design team typically uses a "Shared Code Approach" when developing applications for one or more platforms. This provides maximum efficiency during the development process. With this approach, core functionality is shared between the applications being developed. Core functionality is that portion of the program code that is platform independent and should therefore not be modified during the development process. This code typically includes patented or common algorithms and other basic functionalities that define the essence of how a program behaves.

This methodology provides for optimal development efficiency, in that it reduces the level of effort required, while ensuring maximum "closeness" between the two or more applications being developed on different platforms.

Coding

Once the above issues have been addressed, MetaDesign Solutions will develop the software application on a target platform in a manner that meets the exacting needs of our customer.

Quality Assurance

We continuously test the software throughout the development process. To ensure our customer is up to date during the development process, we traditionally set interim milestones that demonstrate the progress of the project. These small drops usually contain executables, accompanied with release notes that outline key advances, additional features and any outstanding or resolved issues since the last drop. The customer Product Manager or Program Manager and one or two QA Engineers usually see these drops.

Acceptance Testing

Once we have completed our internal testing of a software application, we ship the software product to our customer for Acceptance Testing, prior to customer sign off on the product. During this phase, the customer concentrates QA resources on the product. MetaDesign Solutions provides several channels to deliver these drops to the customer safely and securely.

Advantages

• Flexibility A cross platform development environment allows you to maximize the use of all your resources. This can include everything from your workstations and servers to their disk space and cpu cycles.


• Strength Developing with a cross platform development environment allows you to choose the development strategy to suit your needs. This strategy may be carrying out the bulk of the development on a single platform and then testing against multiple platforms once development is complete; Or it may be developing and testing on different platforms concurrently.

Either way the end result is a much more robust product that is guaranteed to work across the range of environments.