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With headquarters in Chicago and regional offices in New York, Miami, Buenos Aires, and Eastern Europe, Sphere is a global company with a local focus and a national presence.\r\nSphere routinely helps a wide range of clients from start-ups to Fortune 100 by transforming initial visions into effective technological products.\r\nOur clients include BuzzFeed, Tumblr, ING Bank, Subway, Beachbody, Groupon, Enova, Nokia, Morningstar, Sears, Gett, Hub Group, Sittercity, The Private Bank, Springleaf, TMX Finance, Berlingske Media, Kuoni, and Eligo Energy.\r\nOur consulting and development services include Agile Mobile &amp; Web Applications, DevOps Engineering, Atlassian Service &amp; Support, Solution Architecture, Team Augmentation, Cloud Solutions, Advanced Analytics, Data Visualization, and UX / UI Design.\r\nSource: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sphere-consulting-inc/about/","companyTypes":["supplier","vendor"],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":1,"suppliedProductsCount":1,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":0,"vendorImplementationsCount":0,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{"32":{"id":32,"title":"IT outsourcing","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">IT outsourcing</span> is the use of external service providers to effectively deliver IT-enabled business process, application service and infrastructure solutions for business outcomes.\r\nOutsourcing, which also includes utility services, software as a service and cloud-enabled outsourcing, helps clients to develop the right sourcing strategies and vision, select the right IT service providers, structure the best possible contracts, and govern deals for sustainable win-win relationships with external providers.\r\nOutsourcing can enable enterprises to reduce costs, accelerate time to market, and take advantage of external expertise, assets and/or intellectual property. IT outsourcing can be implemented both ways: outsides or within the country. \r\nIT outsourcing vendors can provide either a fully managed service, meaning they take full responsibility of all IT maintenance and support, or they can provide additional support for an internal IT team when needed, which is known as co-sourced IT support. A company using IT outsourcing can choose to use one provider for all their IT functions or split the work among multiple providers. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Specific IT services typically outsourced include:</span>\r\n<ul><li>Application development</li><li>Web hosting</li><li>Application support</li><li>Database development</li><li>Telecommunications</li><li>Networking</li><li>Disaster recovery</li><li>Security</li></ul>\r\n<p class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Reasons for Outsourcing</span></p>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">To Reduce Cost.</span> More often than not, outsourcing means saving money. This is often due to lower labor costs, cheaper infrastructure, or an advantageous tax system in the outsourcing location.<br /><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">To Access Skills That Are Unavailable Locally.</span> Resources that are scarce at home can sometimes be found in abundance elsewhere, meaning you can easily reach them through outsourcing.<br /><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">To Better Use Internal Resources</span>. By delegating some of your business processes to a third party, you’ll give your in-house employees the opportunity to focus on more meaningful tasks.<br /><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">To Accelerate Business Processes.</span> When you stop wasting time on mundane, time-consuming processes, you’ll be able to move forward with your core offering a lot faster.<br /><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">To Share Risks.</span> When you delegate a part of non-focus functionality by outsourcing it to a third-party vendor, you give away the responsibility and related risks.","materialsDescription":"<h3 class=\"align-center\">What are the Types of IT Outsourcing?</h3>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Project-Based Model.</span> The client hires a team to implement the part of work that is already planned and defined. The project manager from the outsourced team carries full responsibility for the quality and performance of the project.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Dedicated Team Model.</span> The client hires a team that will create a project for them, and they will work only on that project. Unlike the project-based model, a dedicated team is more engaged in your project. In this model, an outsourced team becomes your technical and product advisor. So it can offer ideas and suggest alternative solutions.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Outstaff Model.</span> It's a type of outsourcing in IT when you don't need a full-fledged development team and hire separate specialists. Sometimes the project requires finding a couple of additional professionals, and you're free to hire outstaff workers to cover that scope of work.</p>\r\n<h3 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are IT Outsourcing examples?</span></h3>\r\nThe individual or company that becomes your outsourcing partner can be located anywhere in the world — one block away from your office or on another continent.\r\nA Bay Area-based startup partnering with an app development team in Utah and a call center in the Philippines, or a UK-based digital marketing agency hiring a Magento developer from Ukraine are both examples of outsourcing.\r\n<h3 class=\"align-center\">Why You Should Use IT Outsourcing</h3>\r\nNow that you know what IT outsourcing is, its models, and types, it's time to clarify why you need to outsource and whether you really need it. Let's go over a few situations that suggest when to opt for IT outsourcing.\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">You are a domain expert with idea</span></li></ul>\r\nIf you're an industry expert with the idea that solves a real problem, IT outsourcing is your choice. In this case, your main goal is to enter the market and test the solution fast. An outsourced team will help you validate the idea, build an MVP to check the hypothesis, and implement changes in your product according to market needs. It saves you money, time and lets you reach the goal.\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">You have an early-stage startup</span></li></ul>\r\nIt's a common case that young startups spend money faster than they get a solid team and a ready-to-market product. The Failory found that financial problems are the 3rd reason why startup fails. So it makes more sense to reduce costs by hiring an outsourced team of professionals while your business lives on investor's money. You may employ a full-cycle product development studio covering all the blind spots and bringing your product to life.\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">You need a technical support</span></li></ul>\r\nEven if you already have a ready solution, but it demands some technical improvements – frameworks for backend components, new language, integrations with enterprise software, UX&amp;UI design – it makes more sense to find an experienced partner. There are many functions that IT outsourcing can cover, and again it saves you the time you'd otherwise spend on looking for qualified staff.<br /><br /><br />","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_IT_outsourcing.png","alias":"it-outsourcing"},"601":{"id":601,"title":"Custom Software Development","description":" Custom software (also known as bespoke software or tailor-made software) is software that organization for some specific organization or another user. As such, it can be contrasted with the use of software packages developed for the mass market, such as commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software, or existing free software.\r\nSince custom software is developed for a single customer it can accommodate that customer's particular preferences and expectations. Custom software may be developed in an iterative process, allowing all nuances and possible hidden risks to be taken into account, including issues which were not mentioned in the original requirement specifications (which are, as a rule, never perfect). In particular, the first phase in the software development process may involve many departments, materchode including marketing, engineering, research and development and general management.\r\nLarge companies commonly use custom software for critical functions, including content management, inventory management, customer management, human resource management, or otherwise to fill the gaps present in the existing software packages. Often such software is legacy software, developed before COTS or free software packages offering the required functionality became available.\r\nCustom software development is often considered expensive compared to off-the-shelf solutions or products. This can be true if one is speaking of typical challenges and typical solutions. However, it is not always true. In many cases, COTS software requires customization to correctly support the buyer's operations. The cost and delay of COTS customization can even add up to the expense of developing custom software. Cost is not the only consideration, however, as the decision to opt for custom software often includes the requirement for the purchaser to own the source code, to secure the possibility of future development or modifications to the installed system.\r\nAdditionally, COTS comes with upfront license costs which vary enormously but sometimes run into the millions (in terms of dollars). Furthermore, the big software houses that release COTS products revamp their product very frequently. Thus a particular customization may need to be upgraded for compatibility every two to four years. Given the cost of customization, such upgrades also turn out to be expensive, as a dedicated product release cycle will have to be earmarked for them.\r\nThe decision to build custom software or go for a COTS implementation would usually rest on one or more of the following factors:\r\n<ul><li>Finances - both cost and benefit: The upfront license cost for COTS products mean that a thorough cost-benefit analysis of the business case needs to be done. However it is widely known that large custom software projects cannot fix all three of scope, time/cost and quality constant, so either the cost or the benefits of a custom software project will be subject to some degree of uncertainty - even disregarding the uncertainty around the business benefits of a feature that is successfully implemented.</li><li>Supplier - In the case of COTS, is the supplier likely to remain in business long, and will there be adequate support and customization available? Alternatively, will there be a realistic possibility of getting support and customization from third parties? In the case of custom software, software development may be outsourced or done in-house. If it is outsourced, the question is: is the supplier reputable, and do they have a good track record?</li><li>Time to market: COTS products usually have a quicker time to market</li><li>Size of implementation: COTS comes with standardization of business processes and reporting. For a global or national organization, these can bring in gains in cost savings, efficiency and productivity, if the branch offices are all willing and able to use the same COTS without heavy customizations (which is not always a given).</li></ul>","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why is custom software such a large investment?</span>\r\nBuilding a custom web application is a time-consuming endeavor. It takes time to learn the processes of your business, to gather requirements, to flesh out your needs, and to build the software. Put simply, time is money.\r\nWhile it’s a large investment, by investing in custom software, you’ll own the code instead of having a long-term licensing agreement with another software company.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How could my business benefit from custom software?</span>\r\nA custom business software solution increases process efficiency through process automation. When business processes are properly automated, they minimize the waste in time and resources that the original processes contained.\r\nThink of it this way: with software that already exists, you have to modify your process to meet software capabilities. With custom software, you can build a system around the existing processes you have in place. You took a lot of time to develop those processes, so why should you revamp your business?\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is IP and how important is it that I own it?</span>\r\nIP stands for Intellectual Property. When you deal with anything creative, you have to think about copyright and the intellectual property on that work and that includes the creation of software code.\r\nThis gets back to the question of buying vs. building. If there is an existing solution that can suit your needs just fine, then it makes sense to buy, but the software developer owns the code and you are basically licensing the software from there. However, if you need a specialized solution that is customized to your needs and decide to go the custom development route, then the question of who owns the code is an important one.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">I’m thinking about hiring someone offshore; what should I watch out for?</span>\r\nIn short, everything. Language barriers and lack of proximity lead to breakdowns in communication and quality. Do yourself a favor and stay local.\r\nOn a related note, if you’re thinking about hiring for the position internally, think about this: it takes around three people to complete a successful custom software project. If you hire someone internally, their salary might cost what it would take to build with us, and you get a whole team when you work with us. Plus, if your software developer decides to leave, they take their knowledge with them. If one of our team members leave, our whole team shares the knowledge so you’re not left in the dark.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">If things don’t go well, am I sunk?</span>\r\nWe make communication and transparency are top priorities so this doesn’t happen. Right out of the gate we work hard to make sure that not only the project is a good fit, but the relationship with the client is as well. Through each step of the process and the build, we keep you in the loop weekly so you know what to expect and what is happening, but a good development company should have places in their process/relationship where you can cleanly exit. Make sure you know what the process is for leaving and what those different ‘leaving’ options are.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Custom_Software_Development.png","alias":"custom-software-development"},"605":{"id":605,"title":"Java Development","description":" Java is a general-purpose programming language that is class-based, object-oriented, and designed to have as few implementation dependencies as possible. It is intended to let application developers write once, run anywhere (WORA), meaning that compiled Java code can run on all platforms that support Java without the need for recompilation. Java applications are typically compiled to bytecode that can run on any Java virtual machine (JVM) regardless of the underlying computer architecture. The syntax of Java is similar to C and C++, but it has fewer low-level facilities than either of them. As of 2019, Java was one of the most popular programming languages in use according to GitHub, particularly for client-server web applications, with a reported 9 million developers.\r\nJava was originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems (which has since been acquired by Oracle) and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The original and reference implementation Java compilers, virtual machines, and class libraries were originally released by Sun under proprietary licenses. As of May 2007, in compliance with the specifications of the Java Community Process, Sun had relicensed most of its Java technologies under the GNU General Public License. Meanwhile, others have developed alternative implementations of these Sun technologies, such as the GNU Compiler for Java (bytecode compiler), GNU Classpath (standard libraries), and IcedTea-Web (browser plugin for applets).\r\nThe latest versions are Java 13, released in September 2019, and Java 11, a currently supported long-term support (LTS) version, released on September 25, 2018; Oracle released for the legacy Java 8 LTS the last free public update in January 2019 for commercial use, while it will otherwise still support Java 8 with public updates for personal use up to at least December 2020. Oracle (and others) highly recommend uninstalling older versions of Java because of serious risks due to unresolved security issues. Since Java 9 (and 10 and 12) is no longer supported, Oracle advises its users to immediately transition to the latest version (currently Java 13) or an LTS release.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is Java technology and what is its application?</span>\r\nJava is a programming language and computing platform that was first launched by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are many applications and websites that do not work when Java is not installed, and the number of such websites and applications is increasing every day. Java is fast, highly secure, and reliable. From laptops to data centers, from game consoles to supercomputers used for scientific research, from cell phones to the Internet - Java is everywhere!\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is the performance of Java?</span>\r\nPrograms written in Java have a reputation for being slower and taking up more RAM than those written in C. Nevertheless, the speed of execution of programs written in Java has been significantly improved with the release of the so-called JIT compiler in 1997-1998. in version 1.1, in addition to other language features to support better code analysis (such as inner classes, StringBuffer class, simplified logic calculations, and so on). In addition, the Java virtual machine was optimized - since 2000, the HotSpot virtual machine has been used for this. As of February 2012, Java 7 code is approximately 1.8 times slower than C code.\r\nSome platforms offer hardware runtime support for Java. For example, microcontrollers that run Java code on hardware instead of software JVMs, as well as ARM-based processors that support Java bytecode through the Jazelle option.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the main features of Java?</span>\r\n<ul><li>Automatic memory management.</li><li>Advanced exception handling capabilities.</li><li>A rich set of I/O filtering tools.</li><li>A set of standard collections: array, list, stack, etc.</li><li>The presence of simple tools for creating network applications (including using the RMI protocol).</li><li>The presence of classes that allow you to perform HTTP requests and process responses.</li><li>Built-in language tools for creating multi-threaded applications, which were then ported to many languages ​​(for example, Python).</li><li>Unified access to databases: at the level of individual SQL queries - based on JDBC, SQLJ; at the level of the concept of objects with the ability to store in the database - based on Java Data Objects (English) and Java Persistence API.</li><li>Generalization support (since version 1.5).</li><li>Support for lambdas, closures, built-in functional programming features.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Java_Development.png","alias":"java-development"},"609":{"id":609,"title":".Net Development","description":" .NET Framework is a software framework developed by Microsoft that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It includes a large class library named Framework Class Library (FCL) and provides language interoperability (each language can use code written in other languages) across several programming languages. Programs written for .NET Framework execute in a software environment (in contrast to a hardware environment) named Common Language Runtime (CLR), an application virtual machine that provides services such as security, memory management, and exception handling. As such, computer code written using .NET Framework is called &quot;managed code&quot;. FCL and CLR together constitute the .NET Framework.\r\nFCL provides user interface, data access, database connectivity, cryptography, web application development, numeric algorithms, and network communications. Programmers produce software by combining their source code with .NET Framework and other libraries. The framework is intended to be used by most new applications created for the Windows platform. Microsoft also produces an integrated development environment largely for .NET software called Visual Studio.\r\n.NET Framework began as proprietary software, although the firm worked to standardize the software stack almost immediately, even before its first release. Despite the standardization efforts, developers, mainly those in the free and open-source software communities, expressed their unease with the selected terms and the prospects of any free and open-source implementation, especially regarding software patents. Since then, Microsoft has changed .NET development to more closely follow a contemporary model of a community-developed software project, including issuing an update to its patent promising to address the concerns.\r\n.NET Framework led to a family of .NET platforms targeting mobile computing, embedded devices, alternative operating systems, and web browser plug-ins. A reduced version of the framework, .NET Compact Framework, is available on Windows CE platforms, including Windows Mobile devices such as smartphones. .NET Micro Framework is targeted at very resource-constrained embedded devices. Silverlight was available as a web browser plugin. Mono is available for many operating systems and is customized into popular smartphone operating systems (Android and iOS) and game engines. .NET Core targets the Universal Windows Platform (UWP), and cross-platform and cloud computing workloads.","materialsDescription":"When Microsoft formally introduced its .NET strategy in mid-2000, analysts were confused about how the company would pull off such a massive platform shift. Over two years later, they're still wondering. But .NET isn't vaporware, and it's not a pipe dream. In fact, .NET is happening today.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is .NET?</span>\r\nActually, .NET is many things, but primarily it's a marketing term for a set of products and technologies that Microsoft is creating to move personal and enterprise computing beyond the PC desktop and into a distributed Internet-based environment. So .NET--which was originally called Next Generation Windows Services (NGWS)--is also a platform, one that Microsoft sees as the successor to Windows. The .NET platform is based on Web services which are, in turn, defined by a language called XML.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is XML?</span>\r\nXML--the eXtensible Markup Language--is a self-descriptive, data definition language. It's structure is similar to HTML, the language of the Web, but it's far more powerful because it's not limited to a static list of language constructs (&quot;tags&quot;) that the language's authors supply. Instead, XML is extensible and dynamic: Programmers can define new types of data using XML and then describe that data so that others will know how to use it.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are Web services?</span>\r\nWeb services are functions exposed by server-side applications. They are programmable units that other applications (and Web services) can access over the Internet.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Does .NET require Windows?</span>\r\nTechnically, no, but realistically, yes. It's possible the .NET platform could be ported to other operating systems, such as Linux, FreeBSD, the Macintosh, or whatever, and indeed, some work is being done now in this area. However, .NET very much requires Windows today, on both the server and the client. One might say that .NET and Windows have a symbiotic relationship going forward.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Is .NET is being ported to Linux?</span>\r\nYes. A company called Ximian is porting the standards-based parts of .NET to Linux as you read this, and the work is amazingly far along. Code-named Mono, this project seeks to bring the C# programming language, the Common Language Runtime (CLR, see below), and other .NET features to Linux.\r\nOn a related note, Microsoft has contracted Corel (makers of CorelDRAW and Word Perfect) to port .NET to FreeBSD.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Isn't .NET just another name for COM, COM+, Windows DNA, or some other previous Windows technology?</span>\r\nActually, no. Microsoft spent considerable time and effort developing and promoting a set of Windows technologies that was at various times called OLE, COM, COM+, and Windows DNA (Distributed InterNet Architecture) but .NET is not the next iteration. Windows DNA, which was the final umbrella term for this set of technologies, was based around a concept where Windows-based software components could expose their services for other local and remote Windows software components. But though this sounds passingly similar to .NET, Windows DNA is very much based on proprietary Windows technologies. By comparison, .NET is based on open standards (XML and various related technologies), so it will be much easier for other vendors to adopt the platform and write compatible software. So we can eventually expect to see .NET clients and servers on platforms other than Windows.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">So what technologies are part of .NET?</span>\r\n.NET is comprised of several related technologies, including:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">.NET Framework</span></span> - A runtime environment and set of standard services which .NET capable applications and services can utilize. Implemented as a code library, the .NET Framework includes the Common Language Runtime (CLR), the .NET run-time environment; ASP .NET, a Web applications platform; and ADO .NET, for data store access.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">.NET Compact Framework</span></span> - A subset of the .NET Framework designed for Pocket PCs, Microsoft Smart Phones, and other Windows CE .NET-based mobile devices.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">MSN consumer services</span></span> - Microsoft will use its consumer-oriented MSN online service to expose Web services to individuals. The current version, MSN 8, includes the .NET Passport's authentication services, email, address book, calendaring and tasks, and other similar services.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">.NET Enterprise Servers</span></span> - An extensive set of Microsoft server software that runs on Windows servers, including Application Server, BizTalk Server, Exchange Server, Host Integration Server, Internet Security and Acceleration Server, SQL Server, and many others. Microsoft is currently shipping many such server products, but they are all based on Windows DNA currently, not .NET. Future server products--beginning with Windows .NET Server 2003, due in April 2003--will actually be based on .NET technologies for the first time.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Visual Studio .NET</span></span> - Microsoft's .NET development environment, with support for languages such as Visual Basic .NET, Visual C++ .NET, Visual C# .NET, and Visual J#, which all target the .NET Framework. Other vendors can add other language capabilities to Visual Studio .NET, and the suite can be used to target a wide range of applications and services, including .NET Web services, Windows applications, and Web applications. Note that Visual Studio .NET is not required to create .NET applications and services: Developers can download the .NET Framework for free; this download includes compilers for Visual Basic .NET, Visual C++ .NET and Visual C# .NET.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">OK, so what's the point? How does this make my life better?</span>\r\nWith apologies to Microsoft for stealing the term, .NET enables a better PC ecosystem. That is, by making life easier for everyone involved with PCs, the benefits are cross-pollinated. Here's how .NET makes life easier on various groups:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Programmers</span></span> - Because developers now have a consistent, language-neutral programming environment, they can create better applications and services more quickly. And because .NET encompasses such a wider range of functionality, those applications and services can be connected to back-end services via the Internet, offering better, and more exciting functionality.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">IT administrators</span></span> - Because .NET applications and services do away with the &quot;DLL Hell&quot; found in previous Windows applications, they are amazingly easy to distribute and install.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">End users</span></span> - For the reasons listed above, and many others, a new generation of .NET applications and services will provide new types of connected functionality. Access your email from anywhere. Pay for products online without typing in your credit card information. Access weather, traffic, music, and other personal information from a variety of devices, from anywhere in the world. The future is all connected, and .NET will get us there.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Net_Development.png","alias":"net-development"},"629":{"id":629,"title":"PHP Development","description":"PHP is a general-purpose programming language originally designed for web development. It was originally created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994; the PHP reference implementation is now produced by The PHP Group. PHP originally stood for Personal Home Page, but it now stands for the recursive initialism PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor.\r\nPHP code may be executed with a command line interface (CLI), embedded into HTML code, or used in combination with various web template systems, web content management systems, and web frameworks. PHP code is usually processed by a PHP interpreter implemented as a module in a web server or as a Common Gateway Interface (CGI) executable. The web server outputs the results of the interpreted and executed PHP code, which may be any type of data, such as generated HTML code or binary image data. PHP can be used for many programming tasks outside of the web context, such as standalone graphical applications and robotic drone control.\r\nThe standard PHP interpreter, powered by the Zend Engine, is free software released under the PHP License. PHP has been widely ported and can be deployed on most web servers on almost every operating system and platform, free of charge.\r\nThe PHP language evolved without a written formal specification or standard until 2014, with the original implementation acting as the de facto standard which other implementations aimed to follow. Since 2014, work has gone on to create a formal PHP specification.\r\nAs of September 2019, over 60% of sites on the web using PHP are still on discontinued/&quot;EOLed&quot; version 5.6 or older; versions prior to 7.2 are no longer officially supported by The PHP Development Team, but security support is provided by third parties, such as Debian.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is PHP?</span>\r\nPHP stands for Hypertext Preprocessor. It is an open-source server-side scripting language that is widely used for web development. It supports many databases like MySQL, Oracle, Sybase, Solid, PostgreSQL, generic ODBC, etc.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is PEAR in PHP?</span>\r\nPEAR is a framework and repository for reusable PHP components. PEAR stands for PHP Extension and Application Repository. It contains all types of PHP code snippets and libraries. It also provides a command-line interface to install &quot;packages&quot; automatically.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Who is known as the father of PHP?</span>\r\nRasmus Lerdorf.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What was the old name of PHP?</span>\r\nThe old name of PHP was Personal Home Page.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Explain the difference b/w static and dynamic websites?</span>\r\nIn static websites, content can't be changed after running the script. You can't change anything on the site. It is predefined.\r\nIn dynamic websites, the content of a script can be changed at the run time. Its content is regenerated every time a user visits or reload. Google, yahoo and every search engine is an example of a dynamic website.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is the name of the scripting engine in PHP?</span>\r\nThe scripting engine that powers PHP is called Zend Engine 2.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_PHP_Development.png","alias":"php-development"},"633":{"id":633,"title":"Ruby on Rails Development","description":" Ruby on Rails, or Rails, is a server-side web application framework written in Ruby under the MIT License. Rails is a model–view–controller (MVC) framework, providing default structures for a database, a web service, and web pages. It encourages and facilitates the use of web standards such as JSON or XML for data transfer, HTML, CSS and JavaScript for user interfacing. In addition to MVC, Rails emphasizes the use of other well-known software engineering patterns and paradigms, including convention over configuration (CoC), don't repeat yourself (DRY), and the active record pattern.\r\nRuby on Rails' emergence in the 2000s greatly influenced web app development, through innovative features such as seamless database table creations, migrations, and scaffolding of views to enable rapid application development. Ruby on Rails' influence on other web frameworks remains apparent today, with many frameworks in other languages borrowing its ideas, including Django in Python, Catalyst in Perl, Laravel and CakePHP in PHP, Phoenix in Elixir, Play in Scala, and Sails.js in Node.js.\r\nRuby on Rails is intended to emphasize Convention over Configuration (CoC), and the Don't Repeat Yourself (DRY) principle.\r\n&quot;Convention over Configuration&quot; means a developer only needs to specify unconventional aspects of the application. For example, if there is a class Sale in the model, the corresponding table in the database is called sales by default. It is only if one deviates from this convention, such as calling the table &quot;products sold&quot;, that the developer needs to write code regarding these names. Generally, Ruby on Rails conventions lead to less code and less repetition.\r\n&quot;Don't repeat yourself&quot; means that information is located in a single, unambiguous place. For example, using the ActiveRecord module of Rails, the developer does not need to specify database column names in class definitions. Instead, Ruby on Rails can retrieve this information from the database based on the class name.\r\n&quot;Fat models, skinny controllers&quot; means that most of the application logic should be placed within the model while leaving the controller as light as possible.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Ruby on Rails?</span>\r\nRails is a development tool that gives web developers a framework, providing structure for all the code they write. The Rails framework helps developers to build websites and applications because it abstracts and simplifies common repetitive tasks.\r\nRails are written in Ruby, the programming language which is also used alongside Rails. Ruby is to Rails as PHP is to Symfony and Zend, or as Python is to Django. The appeal of Ruby to developers lies in the elegance and terseness of the language.\r\nOne of the key principles of Ruby on Rails development (henceforth ‘Rails’) is convention over configuration. This means that the programmer does not have to spend a lot of time configuring files in order to get set up, Rails comes with a set of conventions which help speed up development.\r\nAnother characteristic of Rails is the emphasis on RESTful application design. REST (Representational State Transfer) is a style of software architecture based around the client-server relationship. It encourages a logical structure within applications, which means they can easily be exposed as an API (Application Programming Interface).\r\nFrom a project management point of view, the Ruby on Rails community advocate Agile web development – an iterative development method, that encourages collaborative and flexible approach, which is particularly well-suited for web application development with fast-changing requirements.\r\nOver the last few years Ruby on Rails has gained a large and enthusiastic following, but let’s consider the main arguments for and against Rails.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why is it necessary to use Ruby on Rails?</span>\r\n<ul><li>The process of programming is much faster than with other frameworks and languages, partly because of the object-oriented nature of Ruby and the vast collection of open source code available within the Rails community.</li><li>The Rails conventions also make it easy for developers to move between different Rails projects, as each project will tend to follow the same structure and coding practices.</li><li>Rails are good for rapid application development (RAD), as the framework makes it easy to accommodate changes.</li><li>Ruby code is very readable and mostly self-documenting. This increases productivity, as there is less need to write out separate documentation, making it easier for other developers to pick up existing projects.</li><li>Rails have developed a strong focus on testing and have good testing frameworks.</li><li>Rails and most of its libraries are open sources, so unlike other commercial development frameworks, there are no licensing costs involved.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Potential Rails problems and limitations and how to overcome them:</span>\r\n<ul><li>Not all website hosts can support Rails</li><li>Java and PHP are more widely used, and there are more developers in these languages</li><li>Performance and Scalability</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Ruby_on_Rails_Development.png","alias":"ruby-on-rails-development"},"635":{"id":635,"title":"Python Development","description":" Python is an interpreted, high-level, general-purpose programming language. Created by Guido van Rossum and first released in 1991, Python's design philosophy emphasizes code readability with its notable use of significant whitespace. Its language constructs and object-oriented approach aim to help programmers write clear, logical code for small and large-scale projects.\r\nPython is dynamically typed and garbage-collected. It supports multiple programming paradigms, including procedural, object-oriented, and functional programming. Python is often described as a &quot;batteries included&quot; language due to its comprehensive standard library.\r\nPython was conceived in the late 1980s as a successor to the ABC language. Python 2.0, released in 2000, introduced features like list comprehensions and a garbage collection system capable of collecting reference cycles. Python 3.0, released in 2008, was a major revision of the language that is not completely backward-compatible, and much Python 2 code does not run unmodified on Python 3.\r\nThe Python 2 language, i.e. Python 2.7.x, was officially discontinued on 1 January 2020 (first planned for 2015) after which security patches and other improvements will not be released for it. With Python 2's end-of-life, only Python 3.5.x and later are supported.\r\nPython interpreters are available for many operating systems. A global community of programmers develops and maintains CPython, an open source reference implementation. A non-profit organization, the Python Software Foundation, manages and directs resources for Python and CPython development.\r\nPython is a multi-paradigm programming language. Object-oriented programming and structured programming are fully supported, and many of its features support functional programming and aspect-oriented programming (including by metaprogramming and metaobjects (magic methods)). Many other paradigms are supported via extensions, including design by contract and logic programming.\r\nPython uses dynamic typing and a combination of reference counting and a cycle-detecting garbage collector for memory management. It also features dynamic name resolution (late binding), which binds method and variable names during program execution.\r\nPython's design offers some support for functional programming in the Lisp tradition. It has filter, map, and reduce functions; list comprehensions, dictionaries, sets, and generator expressions. The standard library has two modules (itertools and functools) that implement functional tools borrowed from Haskell and Standard ML.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Python?</span>\r\nPython is an interpreted, interactive, object-oriented programming language. It incorporates modules, exceptions, dynamic typing, very high level dynamic data types, and classes. Python combines remarkable power with very clear syntax. It has interfaces to many system calls and libraries, as well as to various window systems, and is extensible in C or C++. It is also usable as an extension language for applications that need a programmable interface. Finally, Python is portable: it runs on many Unix variants, on the Mac, and on Windows 2000 and later.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is the Python Software Foundation?</span>\r\nThe Python Software Foundation is an independent non-profit organization that holds the copyright on Python versions 2.1 and newer. The PSF’s mission is to advance open source technology related to the Python programming language and to publicize the use of Python. The PSF’s home page is at <link https://www.python.org/psf/.>https://www.python.org/psf/.</link>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Are there copyright restrictions on the use of Python?</span>\r\nYou can do anything you want with the source, as long as you leave the copyrights in and display those copyrights in any documentation about Python that you produce. If you honor the copyright rules, it’s OK to use Python for commercial use, to sell copies of Python in source or binary form (modified or unmodified), or to sell products that incorporate Python in some form. We would still like to know about all commercial use of Python, of course.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Python good for?</span>\r\nPython is a high-level general-purpose programming language that can be applied to many different classes of problems.\r\nThe language comes with a large standard library that covers areas such as string processing (regular expressions, Unicode, calculating differences between files), Internet protocols (HTTP, FTP, SMTP, XML-RPC, POP, IMAP, CGI programming), software engineering (unit testing, logging, profiling, parsing Python code), and operating system interfaces (system calls, filesystems, TCP/IP sockets). Look at the table of contents for The Python Standard Library to get an idea of what’s available. A wide variety of third-party extensions are also available. Consult the Python Package Index to find packages of interest to you.<br /><br />","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Python_Development.png","alias":"python-development"},"665":{"id":665,"title":"User Interface Development","description":" User interface design (UI) or user interface engineering is the design of user interfaces for machines and software, such as computers, home appliances, mobile devices, and other electronic devices, with the focus on maximizing usability and the user experience. The goal of user interface design is to make the user's interaction as simple and efficient as possible, in terms of accomplishing user goals (user-centered design).\r\nGood user interface design facilitates finishing the task at hand without drawing unnecessary attention to itself. Graphic design and typography are utilized to support its usability, influencing how the user performs certain interactions and improving the aesthetic appeal of the design; design aesthetics may enhance or detract from the ability of users to use the functions of the interface. The design process must balance technical functionality and visual elements (e.g., mental model) to create a system that is not only operational but also usable and adaptable to changing user needs.\r\nInterface design is involved in a wide range of projects from computer systems, to cars, to commercial planes; all of these projects involve much of the same basic human interactions yet also require some unique skills and knowledge. As a result, designers tend to specialize in certain types of projects and have skills centered on their expertise, whether it is a software design, user research, web design, or industrial design.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Graphical User Interface?</span>\r\nThe graphical user interface, developed in the late 1970s by the Xerox Palo Alto research laboratory and deployed commercially in Apple’s Macintosh and Microsoft’s Windows operating systems, was designed as a response to the problem of inefficient usability in early, text-based command-line interfaces for the average user.\r\nGraphical user interfaces would become the standard of user-centered design in software application programming, providing users the capability to intuitively operate computers and other electronic devices through the direct manipulation of graphical icons such as buttons, scroll bars, windows, tabs, menus, cursors, and the mouse pointing device. Many modern graphical user interfaces feature touchscreen and voice-command interaction capabilities.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How Does a Graphical User Interface Work?</span>\r\nGraphical user interface design principles conform to the model–view–controller software pattern, which separates internal representations of information from the manner in which information is presented to the user, resulting in a platform where users are shown which functions are possible rather than requiring the input of command codes. Users interact with information by manipulating visual widgets, which are designed to respond in accordance with the type of data they hold and support the actions necessary to complete the user’s task.\r\nThe appearance, or “skin,” of an operating system or application software may be redesigned at will due to the nature of graphical user interfaces being independent from application functions. Applications typically implement their own unique graphical user interface display elements in addition to graphical user interface elements already present on the existing operating system. A typical graphical user interface also includes standard formats for representing graphics and text, making it possible to share data between applications running under common graphical user interface design software.\r\nGraphical user interface testing refers to the systematic process of generating test cases in order to evaluate the functionality of the system and its design elements. Graphical user interface testing tools, which are either manual or automated and typically implemented by third-party operators, are available under a variety of licenses and are supported by a variety of platforms. Popular examples include: Tricentis Tosca, Squish GUI Tester, Unified Functional Testing (UFT), Maveryx, Appium, and eggPlant Functional.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Graphical User Interface Examples</span>\r\nSketchpad, believed to be the first graphical computer-aided design program, was developed in 1962 by Ivan Sutherland while he was at MIT, and consisted of a light pen that enabled users to create and manipulate objects in engineering drawings in real-time with coordinated graphics.\r\nModern operating systems and graphical user interfaces are incorporated into nearly every interactive application, such as ATMs, self-service checkouts, airline self-ticketing and check-in, video games, smartphones, and desktops. Some popular, modern graphical user interface examples include Microsoft Windows, macOS, Ubuntu Unity, and GNOME Shell for desktop environments, and Android, Apple's iOS, BlackBerry OS, Windows 10 Mobile, Palm OS-WebOS, and Firefox OS for smartphones.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Advantages of Graphical User Interfaces</span>\r\nThe advantage of a graphical user interface is a stark improvement in useability for the average person. The features of a graphical user interface leverage familiar metaphors, such as drag-and-drop for transferring files, and use familiar icons, such as a trash bin for deleted files, creating an environment in which computer operations are intuitive and easily mastered without any prior practice or knowledge of computing machinery or languages. Graphical user interface applications are self descriptive, feedback is typically immediate, and visual cues encourage and steer discoverability.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_User_Interface_Development.png","alias":"user-interface-development"},"718":{"id":718,"title":"IT Consulting","description":" In management, information technology consulting (also called IT consulting, computer consultancy, business and technology services, computing consultancy, technology consulting, and IT advisory) as a field of activity focuses on advising organizations on how best to use information technology (IT) in achieving their business objectives.\r\nThe IT consulting industry can be viewed as a Four-tier system:\r\n<ul><li>Professional services firms which maintain large professional workforces and command high bill rates.</li><li>Staffing firms, which place technologists with businesses on a temporary basis, typically in response to employee absences, temporary skill shortages and technical projects.</li><li>Independent consultants, who are self-employed or who function as employees of staffing firms (for US tax purposes, employed on Form W-2), or as independent contractors in their own right (for US tax purposes, on &quot;1099&quot;).</li><li>Information Technology security consultants</li></ul>\r\nThere are different reasons why consultants are called in:\r\n<ul><li>To gain external, objective advice and recommendations</li><li>To gain access to the consultants' specialized expertise</li><li>Temporary help during a one-time project where the hiring of a permanent employee(s) is not required or necessary</li><li>To outsource all or part of the IT services from a specific company.</li></ul>\r\nThere is a relatively unclear line between management consulting and IT consulting. There are sometimes overlaps between the two fields, but IT consultants often have degrees in computer science, electronics, technology, or management information systems while management consultants often have degrees in accounting, economics, Industrial Engineering, finance, or a generalized MBA (Masters in Business Administration).\r\nAccording to the Institute for Partner Education &amp; Development, IT consultants' revenues come predominantly from design and planning based consulting with a mixture of IT and business consulting. This is different from a systems integrator in that you do not normally take title to product. Their value comes from their ability to integrate and support technologies as well as determining product and brands. ","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Who is an information technology (IT) consultant?</span>\r\nAn information technology consultant is a third-party service provider who is qualified to advise clients on the best use of IT to meet specific business requirements. IT consultants may work with a professional IT consultancy firm or as independent contractors. They may conduct a business needs assessment and develop an information systems solution that meets the organization's objectives.\r\nSome information technology consultants emphasize technical issues while others help organizations use IT to manage business processes. Still others specialize in a specific IT area such as information security.\r\nIT consultants need a deep knowledge of both business and information technology. A bachelor's degree in management information systems, computer science, or information science is the typical path into a technical consultancy career. IT certifications supplement this foundation with specialized technical training. Information technology degree and certification programs are available online to accommodate working IT professionals.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are the prerequisites and major obstacles?</span>\r\nOnce a business owner defined the needs to take a business to the next level, a decision maker will define a scope, cost and a time-frame of the project. The role of the IT consultancy company is to support and nurture the company from the very beginning of the project until the end, and deliver the project not only in the scope, time and cost but also with complete customer satisfaction.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Project scoping and planning</span></span>\r\nThe usual problem is that a business owner doesn't know the detail of what the project is going to deliver until it starts the process. In many cases, the incremental effort in some projects can lead to significant financial loss.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Business process and system design</span></span>\r\nThe scope of a project is linked intimately to the proposed business processes and systems that the project is going to deliver. Regardless of whether the project is to launch a new product range or discontinue unprofitable parts of the business, the change will have some impact on business processes and systems. The documentation of your business processes and system requirements are as fundamental to project scoping as an architects plans would be to the costing and scoping of the construction of a building.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Project management support</span></span>\r\nThe most successful business projects are always those that are driven by an employee who has the authority, vision and influence to drive the required changes in a business. It is highly unlikely that a business owner (decision maker or similar) will realize the changes unless one has one of these people in the employment. However, the project leadership role typically requires significant experience and skills which are not usually found within a company focused on day-to-day operations. Due to this requirement within more significant business change projects/programs, outside expertise is often sought from firms which can bring this specific skill set to the company.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the skills of IT-consulting?</span>\r\nAn IT consultant needs to possess the following skills:\r\n<ul><li>Advisory skills</li><li>Technical skills</li><li>Business skills</li><li>Communication skills</li><li>Management skills</li><li>Advisory language skills</li><li>Business and management language skills</li><li>Technical language skills</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_IT_Consulting.png","alias":"it-consulting"},"729":{"id":729,"title":"IT Project Deployment Services","description":" Companies invest in projects for the implementation of IT systems that are consistent with the organization's values, with the goal of realizing a business vision, stable support for operational activities, and gaining competitive advantages. In this regard, technological projects are becoming increasingly large-scale, affecting more departments of the organization, and pose a risk to the company if the operation of information systems is disrupted.\r\nThe introduction of new IT requires the project team to carry out at least two principal stages:\r\n<ul><li>pre-project analysis of the enterprise, when, with the help of specialists in the proposed IP and specialists of the enterprise, compliance and discrepancies between the system and its future use is revealed. As a result of the survey, ways to eliminate inconsistencies are determined based on the initial assessment of the required resources and time. The survey is conducted using questions and answers, to some extent formalized, and special software tools that allow you to describe the processes of the system and the enterprise and compare them visually. No changes take place at the enterprise unless individual employees are distracted from their direct duties, which is both a virtue and a disadvantage of this approach;</li><li>trial implementation carried out on the most characteristic site of work. Based on this test work, a general assessment of future implementation is determined and a fundamental decision is made on the use of IP.</li></ul>\r\nThere is a lot of confusion and substitution of the concept of “project team” with the idea of ​​it as a “group”, “pack”, “family”, etc. There are several understandings that there is a modern “project team/group” and “integrated project team”, however, the fundamental characteristic of the team is that it does not exist outside the project. A team with all its human strengths and weaknesses is a necessary and inseparable element of any project. It is a developing element of the technology of the project and affects the project itself.\r\nThe project itself is not “done” - it is made by people, and where people are affected by the influence of biology, instincts, gender parameters, “conscious” and “unconscious”, etc. If people are in the organizational “system” (family, flock, group, team, etc.), systemic effects arise that should be foreseen in the formation of a set of people due to the competent selection, placement and development of the team in the right direction. This is not just an ordinary organizational question, but a question of the depth of understanding of the essence of the project, its management and the skill of the leader.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is an IT project?</span>\r\nAn IT project is a project that includes work related to information technology.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is information technology?</span>\r\nInformation technology is a technology aimed at the creation, development and support of information systems.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the main ideas underlying the project team model of an IT project?</span>\r\n<ul><li>interdependent and interrelated roles in a small group;</li><li>determination of the role, special mission and area of ​​responsibility for each member of the project team;</li><li>distributed project management and responsibility;</li><li>each is focused on the success of the project and is set to work throughout the project cycle;</li><li>communication between project team members is a key success factor;</li><li>users and training staff are included in the project team;</li><li>parallel engineering - parallel work of all team members on a project.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_IT_Project_Deployment_Services.png","alias":"it-project-deployment-services"},"735":{"id":735,"title":"Installation and configuration","description":" Installation or setup is the act of making the system or program ready for execution. Because the process varies for each program and each computer, programs (including operating systems) often come with an installer, a specialized program responsible for doing whatever is needed for their installation. The configuration is an arrangement of functional units according to their nature, number, and chief characteristics. Often, configuration pertains to the choice of hardware, software, firmware, settings, and documentation. The configuration affects system function and performance.\r\nSome computer programs can be executed by simply copying them into a folder stored on a computer and executing them. Other programs are supplied in a form unsuitable for immediate execution and therefore need an installation procedure. Once installed, the program can be executed again and again, without the need to reinstall before each execution.\r\nCommon operations performed during software installations include:\r\n<ul><li>Making sure that necessary system requirements are met</li><li>Checking for existing versions of the software</li><li>Creating or updating program files and folders</li><li>Adding configuration data such as configuration files, Windows registry entries or environment variables</li><li>Making the software accessible to the user, for instance by creating links, shortcuts or bookmarks</li><li>Configuring components that run automatically, such as daemons or Windows services</li><li>Performing product activation</li><li>Updating the software versions</li></ul>\r\nThese operations may require some charges or be free of charge. In case of payment, installation costs means the costs connected and relevant to or incurred as a result of installing the drivers or the equipment in the customers' premises. ","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What does &quot;Installation&quot; mean?</span>\r\nInstallation is the process of making hardware and/or software ready for use. Obviously, different systems require different types of installations. While certain installations are simple and straightforward and can be performed by non-professionals, others are more complex and time-consuming and may require the involvement of specialists.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What does the &quot;Configuration&quot; mean?</span>\r\nThe way a system is set up, or the assortment of components that make up the system. Configuration can refer to either hardware or software, or the combination of both. For instance, a typical configuration for a PC consists of 32MB (megabytes) main memory, a floppy drive, a hard disk, a modem, a CD-ROM drive, a VGA monitor, and the Windows operating system.\r\nMany software products require that the computer have a certain minimum configuration. For example, the software might require a graphics display monitor and a video adapter, a particular microprocessor, and a minimum amount of main memory.\r\nWhen you install a new device or program, you sometimes need to configure it, which means to set various switches and jumpers (for hardware) and to define values of parameters (for software). For example, the device or program may need to know what type of video adapter you have and what type of printer is connected to the computer. Thanks to new technologies, such as plug-and-play, much of this configuration is performed automatically.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Installation_and_configuration.png","alias":"installation-and-configuration"},"739":{"id":739,"title":"Deployment and Integration Services","description":" The number of various solutions implemented by customers today is quite large. Often, the subsystems of the seemingly unified IT landscape are either weakly connected with each other, or the interaction between them is established in the mode of transferring files and data by mail or “from hand to hand”.\r\nWestern IT vendors, following a certain trend, offer the customer complete and unified solutions. Such blocks of subsystems solve a specific task and form separate IT centers, which also require the mutual integration of infrastructures. This, oddly enough, is even more difficult, as a complete solution does not allow to penetrate deeply and get access to the required information or control subsystems.\r\nNevertheless, the integration and interconnection of information flows can significantly simplify business processes and lead to an increase in the efficiency of interaction both inside and outside the company (with customers and partners).\r\nThe integration task itself is important for business, as it provides a qualitatively new level of services. This is especially important for companies where IT is the immediate tool for achieving business goals. But it is equally important to make integration optimal in the light of minimizing not only the cost of purchasing equipment and software but also preserving previous IT investments.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">The main types of implementation and integration services offered by companies:</span>\r\n<ul><li>Designing IT architecture for integration solutions in the field of analytics, automation and monitoring of business processes;</li><li>Development and integration of network infrastructure subsystems, including scalable telecommunications equipment, server equipment and workstations;</li><li>Defining a single platform and developing a solution for integrating enterprise applications, data and business processes;</li><li>Implementation and maintenance of integrated integration solutions in the field of enterprise management (ERP-systems);</li><li>Implementation and maintenance of integration solutions in the field of accounting and analysis of sales and customer relations (CRM-system);</li><li>Implementation and maintenance of integration solutions in the field of accounting and financial analysis;</li><li>Impairment, testing and development of solutions for ensuring information security of a business.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Deployment_and_Integration_Services.png","alias":"deployment-and-integration-services"}},"branches":"Information Technology","companySizes":"101 to 500 Employees","companyUrl":"https://sphereinc.com/","countryCodes":["UKR","USA"],"certifications":[],"isSeller":true,"isSupplier":true,"isVendor":true,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Sphere Software","keywords":"","description":" Sphere Software has built innovative software solutions for industry leaders since 2005. With headquarters in Chicago and regional offices in New York, Miami, Buenos Aires, and Eastern Europe, Sphere is a global company with a local focus and a national prese","og:title":"Sphere Software","og:description":" Sphere Software has built innovative software solutions for industry leaders since 2005. With headquarters in Chicago and regional offices in New York, Miami, Buenos Aires, and Eastern Europe, Sphere is a global company with a local focus and a national prese","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Sphere_Software_logo.png"},"eventUrl":"","vendorPartners":[],"supplierPartners":[],"vendoredProducts":[{"id":2924,"logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Sphere_Software_logo.png","logo":true,"scheme":false,"title":"Sphere Software Software Development","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"1.00","implementationsCount":0,"suppliersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"alias":"sphere-software-software-development","companyTitle":"Sphere Software","companyTypes":["supplier","vendor"],"companyId":4934,"companyAlias":"sphere-software","description":"Our company is defined by a core set of values, which are embodied by our employees, and guide every task, communication and client interaction. We are passionate, innovative problem-solvers that take ownership and accountability for the hard work that goes into serving our client’s needs.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mission</span>\r\nWe build custom solutions in software, web, mobile and big data analytics while ensuring the highest level of customer service and satisfaction. In addition to technical expertise, our talented workforce provides unparalleled project management and thought leadership forming a true partnership with each and every client. At Sphere, you dream it, we build it.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Vision</span>\r\nOur goal is to become the leading global developer of innovative custom software solutions. We believe this vision can only be realized through the continued success of our clients.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Experience</span>\r\nWe have over ten years of proven success delivering innovative custom software solutions. This experience saves our clients both time and money by avoiding common delays caused by design or logistical oversights.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Transparency</span>\r\nWe believe in open collaboration and communication. We provide open client access to the same internal collaboration tools used by our development team, and we provide full client access to project status updates and source codes.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Support</span>\r\nWe are highly responsive to our client’s development needs. We adjust our teams to meet your development timeline and project specifications, and continuously adjust these teams to accommodate any changes throughout the development lifecycle.","shortDescription":"Sphere Software has built innovative software solutions for industry leaders since 2005.\r\n","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":13,"sellingCount":16,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Sphere Software Software Development","keywords":"","description":"Our company is defined by a core set of values, which are embodied by our employees, and guide every task, communication and client interaction. We are passionate, innovative problem-solvers that take ownership and accountability for the hard work that goes in","og:title":"Sphere Software Software Development","og:description":"Our company is defined by a core set of values, which are embodied by our employees, and guide every task, communication and client interaction. We are passionate, innovative problem-solvers that take ownership and accountability for the hard work that goes in","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Sphere_Software_logo.png"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":2925,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":601,"title":"Custom Software Development","alias":"custom-software-development","description":" Custom software (also known as bespoke software or tailor-made software) is software that organization for some specific organization or another user. As such, it can be contrasted with the use of software packages developed for the mass market, such as commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software, or existing free software.\r\nSince custom software is developed for a single customer it can accommodate that customer's particular preferences and expectations. Custom software may be developed in an iterative process, allowing all nuances and possible hidden risks to be taken into account, including issues which were not mentioned in the original requirement specifications (which are, as a rule, never perfect). In particular, the first phase in the software development process may involve many departments, materchode including marketing, engineering, research and development and general management.\r\nLarge companies commonly use custom software for critical functions, including content management, inventory management, customer management, human resource management, or otherwise to fill the gaps present in the existing software packages. Often such software is legacy software, developed before COTS or free software packages offering the required functionality became available.\r\nCustom software development is often considered expensive compared to off-the-shelf solutions or products. This can be true if one is speaking of typical challenges and typical solutions. However, it is not always true. In many cases, COTS software requires customization to correctly support the buyer's operations. The cost and delay of COTS customization can even add up to the expense of developing custom software. Cost is not the only consideration, however, as the decision to opt for custom software often includes the requirement for the purchaser to own the source code, to secure the possibility of future development or modifications to the installed system.\r\nAdditionally, COTS comes with upfront license costs which vary enormously but sometimes run into the millions (in terms of dollars). Furthermore, the big software houses that release COTS products revamp their product very frequently. Thus a particular customization may need to be upgraded for compatibility every two to four years. Given the cost of customization, such upgrades also turn out to be expensive, as a dedicated product release cycle will have to be earmarked for them.\r\nThe decision to build custom software or go for a COTS implementation would usually rest on one or more of the following factors:\r\n<ul><li>Finances - both cost and benefit: The upfront license cost for COTS products mean that a thorough cost-benefit analysis of the business case needs to be done. However it is widely known that large custom software projects cannot fix all three of scope, time/cost and quality constant, so either the cost or the benefits of a custom software project will be subject to some degree of uncertainty - even disregarding the uncertainty around the business benefits of a feature that is successfully implemented.</li><li>Supplier - In the case of COTS, is the supplier likely to remain in business long, and will there be adequate support and customization available? Alternatively, will there be a realistic possibility of getting support and customization from third parties? In the case of custom software, software development may be outsourced or done in-house. If it is outsourced, the question is: is the supplier reputable, and do they have a good track record?</li><li>Time to market: COTS products usually have a quicker time to market</li><li>Size of implementation: COTS comes with standardization of business processes and reporting. For a global or national organization, these can bring in gains in cost savings, efficiency and productivity, if the branch offices are all willing and able to use the same COTS without heavy customizations (which is not always a given).</li></ul>","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why is custom software such a large investment?</span>\r\nBuilding a custom web application is a time-consuming endeavor. It takes time to learn the processes of your business, to gather requirements, to flesh out your needs, and to build the software. Put simply, time is money.\r\nWhile it’s a large investment, by investing in custom software, you’ll own the code instead of having a long-term licensing agreement with another software company.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How could my business benefit from custom software?</span>\r\nA custom business software solution increases process efficiency through process automation. When business processes are properly automated, they minimize the waste in time and resources that the original processes contained.\r\nThink of it this way: with software that already exists, you have to modify your process to meet software capabilities. With custom software, you can build a system around the existing processes you have in place. You took a lot of time to develop those processes, so why should you revamp your business?\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is IP and how important is it that I own it?</span>\r\nIP stands for Intellectual Property. When you deal with anything creative, you have to think about copyright and the intellectual property on that work and that includes the creation of software code.\r\nThis gets back to the question of buying vs. building. If there is an existing solution that can suit your needs just fine, then it makes sense to buy, but the software developer owns the code and you are basically licensing the software from there. However, if you need a specialized solution that is customized to your needs and decide to go the custom development route, then the question of who owns the code is an important one.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">I’m thinking about hiring someone offshore; what should I watch out for?</span>\r\nIn short, everything. Language barriers and lack of proximity lead to breakdowns in communication and quality. Do yourself a favor and stay local.\r\nOn a related note, if you’re thinking about hiring for the position internally, think about this: it takes around three people to complete a successful custom software project. If you hire someone internally, their salary might cost what it would take to build with us, and you get a whole team when you work with us. Plus, if your software developer decides to leave, they take their knowledge with them. If one of our team members leave, our whole team shares the knowledge so you’re not left in the dark.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">If things don’t go well, am I sunk?</span>\r\nWe make communication and transparency are top priorities so this doesn’t happen. Right out of the gate we work hard to make sure that not only the project is a good fit, but the relationship with the client is as well. Through each step of the process and the build, we keep you in the loop weekly so you know what to expect and what is happening, but a good development company should have places in their process/relationship where you can cleanly exit. Make sure you know what the process is for leaving and what those different ‘leaving’ options are.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Custom_Software_Development.png"},{"id":32,"title":"IT outsourcing","alias":"it-outsourcing","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">IT outsourcing</span> is the use of external service providers to effectively deliver IT-enabled business process, application service and infrastructure solutions for business outcomes.\r\nOutsourcing, which also includes utility services, software as a service and cloud-enabled outsourcing, helps clients to develop the right sourcing strategies and vision, select the right IT service providers, structure the best possible contracts, and govern deals for sustainable win-win relationships with external providers.\r\nOutsourcing can enable enterprises to reduce costs, accelerate time to market, and take advantage of external expertise, assets and/or intellectual property. IT outsourcing can be implemented both ways: outsides or within the country. \r\nIT outsourcing vendors can provide either a fully managed service, meaning they take full responsibility of all IT maintenance and support, or they can provide additional support for an internal IT team when needed, which is known as co-sourced IT support. A company using IT outsourcing can choose to use one provider for all their IT functions or split the work among multiple providers. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Specific IT services typically outsourced include:</span>\r\n<ul><li>Application development</li><li>Web hosting</li><li>Application support</li><li>Database development</li><li>Telecommunications</li><li>Networking</li><li>Disaster recovery</li><li>Security</li></ul>\r\n<p class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Reasons for Outsourcing</span></p>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">To Reduce Cost.</span> More often than not, outsourcing means saving money. This is often due to lower labor costs, cheaper infrastructure, or an advantageous tax system in the outsourcing location.<br /><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">To Access Skills That Are Unavailable Locally.</span> Resources that are scarce at home can sometimes be found in abundance elsewhere, meaning you can easily reach them through outsourcing.<br /><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">To Better Use Internal Resources</span>. By delegating some of your business processes to a third party, you’ll give your in-house employees the opportunity to focus on more meaningful tasks.<br /><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">To Accelerate Business Processes.</span> When you stop wasting time on mundane, time-consuming processes, you’ll be able to move forward with your core offering a lot faster.<br /><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">To Share Risks.</span> When you delegate a part of non-focus functionality by outsourcing it to a third-party vendor, you give away the responsibility and related risks.","materialsDescription":"<h3 class=\"align-center\">What are the Types of IT Outsourcing?</h3>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Project-Based Model.</span> The client hires a team to implement the part of work that is already planned and defined. The project manager from the outsourced team carries full responsibility for the quality and performance of the project.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Dedicated Team Model.</span> The client hires a team that will create a project for them, and they will work only on that project. Unlike the project-based model, a dedicated team is more engaged in your project. In this model, an outsourced team becomes your technical and product advisor. So it can offer ideas and suggest alternative solutions.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Outstaff Model.</span> It's a type of outsourcing in IT when you don't need a full-fledged development team and hire separate specialists. Sometimes the project requires finding a couple of additional professionals, and you're free to hire outstaff workers to cover that scope of work.</p>\r\n<h3 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are IT Outsourcing examples?</span></h3>\r\nThe individual or company that becomes your outsourcing partner can be located anywhere in the world — one block away from your office or on another continent.\r\nA Bay Area-based startup partnering with an app development team in Utah and a call center in the Philippines, or a UK-based digital marketing agency hiring a Magento developer from Ukraine are both examples of outsourcing.\r\n<h3 class=\"align-center\">Why You Should Use IT Outsourcing</h3>\r\nNow that you know what IT outsourcing is, its models, and types, it's time to clarify why you need to outsource and whether you really need it. Let's go over a few situations that suggest when to opt for IT outsourcing.\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">You are a domain expert with idea</span></li></ul>\r\nIf you're an industry expert with the idea that solves a real problem, IT outsourcing is your choice. In this case, your main goal is to enter the market and test the solution fast. An outsourced team will help you validate the idea, build an MVP to check the hypothesis, and implement changes in your product according to market needs. It saves you money, time and lets you reach the goal.\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">You have an early-stage startup</span></li></ul>\r\nIt's a common case that young startups spend money faster than they get a solid team and a ready-to-market product. The Failory found that financial problems are the 3rd reason why startup fails. So it makes more sense to reduce costs by hiring an outsourced team of professionals while your business lives on investor's money. You may employ a full-cycle product development studio covering all the blind spots and bringing your product to life.\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">You need a technical support</span></li></ul>\r\nEven if you already have a ready solution, but it demands some technical improvements – frameworks for backend components, new language, integrations with enterprise software, UX&amp;UI design – it makes more sense to find an experienced partner. There are many functions that IT outsourcing can cover, and again it saves you the time you'd otherwise spend on looking for qualified staff.<br /><br /><br />","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_IT_outsourcing.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]}],"suppliedProducts":[{"id":2924,"logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Sphere_Software_logo.png","logo":true,"scheme":false,"title":"Sphere Software Software Development","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"1.00","implementationsCount":0,"suppliersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"alias":"sphere-software-software-development","companyTitle":"Sphere Software","companyTypes":["supplier","vendor"],"companyId":4934,"companyAlias":"sphere-software","description":"Our company is defined by a core set of values, which are embodied by our employees, and guide every task, communication and client interaction. We are passionate, innovative problem-solvers that take ownership and accountability for the hard work that goes into serving our client’s needs.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mission</span>\r\nWe build custom solutions in software, web, mobile and big data analytics while ensuring the highest level of customer service and satisfaction. In addition to technical expertise, our talented workforce provides unparalleled project management and thought leadership forming a true partnership with each and every client. At Sphere, you dream it, we build it.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Vision</span>\r\nOur goal is to become the leading global developer of innovative custom software solutions. We believe this vision can only be realized through the continued success of our clients.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Experience</span>\r\nWe have over ten years of proven success delivering innovative custom software solutions. This experience saves our clients both time and money by avoiding common delays caused by design or logistical oversights.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Transparency</span>\r\nWe believe in open collaboration and communication. We provide open client access to the same internal collaboration tools used by our development team, and we provide full client access to project status updates and source codes.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Support</span>\r\nWe are highly responsive to our client’s development needs. We adjust our teams to meet your development timeline and project specifications, and continuously adjust these teams to accommodate any changes throughout the development lifecycle.","shortDescription":"Sphere Software has built innovative software solutions for industry leaders since 2005.\r\n","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":13,"sellingCount":16,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Sphere Software Software Development","keywords":"","description":"Our company is defined by a core set of values, which are embodied by our employees, and guide every task, communication and client interaction. We are passionate, innovative problem-solvers that take ownership and accountability for the hard work that goes in","og:title":"Sphere Software Software Development","og:description":"Our company is defined by a core set of values, which are embodied by our employees, and guide every task, communication and client interaction. We are passionate, innovative problem-solvers that take ownership and accountability for the hard work that goes in","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Sphere_Software_logo.png"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":2925,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":601,"title":"Custom Software Development","alias":"custom-software-development","description":" Custom software (also known as bespoke software or tailor-made software) is software that organization for some specific organization or another user. As such, it can be contrasted with the use of software packages developed for the mass market, such as commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software, or existing free software.\r\nSince custom software is developed for a single customer it can accommodate that customer's particular preferences and expectations. Custom software may be developed in an iterative process, allowing all nuances and possible hidden risks to be taken into account, including issues which were not mentioned in the original requirement specifications (which are, as a rule, never perfect). In particular, the first phase in the software development process may involve many departments, materchode including marketing, engineering, research and development and general management.\r\nLarge companies commonly use custom software for critical functions, including content management, inventory management, customer management, human resource management, or otherwise to fill the gaps present in the existing software packages. Often such software is legacy software, developed before COTS or free software packages offering the required functionality became available.\r\nCustom software development is often considered expensive compared to off-the-shelf solutions or products. This can be true if one is speaking of typical challenges and typical solutions. However, it is not always true. In many cases, COTS software requires customization to correctly support the buyer's operations. The cost and delay of COTS customization can even add up to the expense of developing custom software. Cost is not the only consideration, however, as the decision to opt for custom software often includes the requirement for the purchaser to own the source code, to secure the possibility of future development or modifications to the installed system.\r\nAdditionally, COTS comes with upfront license costs which vary enormously but sometimes run into the millions (in terms of dollars). Furthermore, the big software houses that release COTS products revamp their product very frequently. Thus a particular customization may need to be upgraded for compatibility every two to four years. Given the cost of customization, such upgrades also turn out to be expensive, as a dedicated product release cycle will have to be earmarked for them.\r\nThe decision to build custom software or go for a COTS implementation would usually rest on one or more of the following factors:\r\n<ul><li>Finances - both cost and benefit: The upfront license cost for COTS products mean that a thorough cost-benefit analysis of the business case needs to be done. However it is widely known that large custom software projects cannot fix all three of scope, time/cost and quality constant, so either the cost or the benefits of a custom software project will be subject to some degree of uncertainty - even disregarding the uncertainty around the business benefits of a feature that is successfully implemented.</li><li>Supplier - In the case of COTS, is the supplier likely to remain in business long, and will there be adequate support and customization available? Alternatively, will there be a realistic possibility of getting support and customization from third parties? In the case of custom software, software development may be outsourced or done in-house. If it is outsourced, the question is: is the supplier reputable, and do they have a good track record?</li><li>Time to market: COTS products usually have a quicker time to market</li><li>Size of implementation: COTS comes with standardization of business processes and reporting. For a global or national organization, these can bring in gains in cost savings, efficiency and productivity, if the branch offices are all willing and able to use the same COTS without heavy customizations (which is not always a given).</li></ul>","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why is custom software such a large investment?</span>\r\nBuilding a custom web application is a time-consuming endeavor. It takes time to learn the processes of your business, to gather requirements, to flesh out your needs, and to build the software. Put simply, time is money.\r\nWhile it’s a large investment, by investing in custom software, you’ll own the code instead of having a long-term licensing agreement with another software company.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How could my business benefit from custom software?</span>\r\nA custom business software solution increases process efficiency through process automation. When business processes are properly automated, they minimize the waste in time and resources that the original processes contained.\r\nThink of it this way: with software that already exists, you have to modify your process to meet software capabilities. With custom software, you can build a system around the existing processes you have in place. You took a lot of time to develop those processes, so why should you revamp your business?\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is IP and how important is it that I own it?</span>\r\nIP stands for Intellectual Property. When you deal with anything creative, you have to think about copyright and the intellectual property on that work and that includes the creation of software code.\r\nThis gets back to the question of buying vs. building. If there is an existing solution that can suit your needs just fine, then it makes sense to buy, but the software developer owns the code and you are basically licensing the software from there. However, if you need a specialized solution that is customized to your needs and decide to go the custom development route, then the question of who owns the code is an important one.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">I’m thinking about hiring someone offshore; what should I watch out for?</span>\r\nIn short, everything. Language barriers and lack of proximity lead to breakdowns in communication and quality. Do yourself a favor and stay local.\r\nOn a related note, if you’re thinking about hiring for the position internally, think about this: it takes around three people to complete a successful custom software project. If you hire someone internally, their salary might cost what it would take to build with us, and you get a whole team when you work with us. Plus, if your software developer decides to leave, they take their knowledge with them. If one of our team members leave, our whole team shares the knowledge so you’re not left in the dark.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">If things don’t go well, am I sunk?</span>\r\nWe make communication and transparency are top priorities so this doesn’t happen. Right out of the gate we work hard to make sure that not only the project is a good fit, but the relationship with the client is as well. Through each step of the process and the build, we keep you in the loop weekly so you know what to expect and what is happening, but a good development company should have places in their process/relationship where you can cleanly exit. Make sure you know what the process is for leaving and what those different ‘leaving’ options are.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Custom_Software_Development.png"},{"id":32,"title":"IT outsourcing","alias":"it-outsourcing","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">IT outsourcing</span> is the use of external service providers to effectively deliver IT-enabled business process, application service and infrastructure solutions for business outcomes.\r\nOutsourcing, which also includes utility services, software as a service and cloud-enabled outsourcing, helps clients to develop the right sourcing strategies and vision, select the right IT service providers, structure the best possible contracts, and govern deals for sustainable win-win relationships with external providers.\r\nOutsourcing can enable enterprises to reduce costs, accelerate time to market, and take advantage of external expertise, assets and/or intellectual property. IT outsourcing can be implemented both ways: outsides or within the country. \r\nIT outsourcing vendors can provide either a fully managed service, meaning they take full responsibility of all IT maintenance and support, or they can provide additional support for an internal IT team when needed, which is known as co-sourced IT support. A company using IT outsourcing can choose to use one provider for all their IT functions or split the work among multiple providers. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Specific IT services typically outsourced include:</span>\r\n<ul><li>Application development</li><li>Web hosting</li><li>Application support</li><li>Database development</li><li>Telecommunications</li><li>Networking</li><li>Disaster recovery</li><li>Security</li></ul>\r\n<p class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Reasons for Outsourcing</span></p>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">To Reduce Cost.</span> More often than not, outsourcing means saving money. This is often due to lower labor costs, cheaper infrastructure, or an advantageous tax system in the outsourcing location.<br /><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">To Access Skills That Are Unavailable Locally.</span> Resources that are scarce at home can sometimes be found in abundance elsewhere, meaning you can easily reach them through outsourcing.<br /><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">To Better Use Internal Resources</span>. By delegating some of your business processes to a third party, you’ll give your in-house employees the opportunity to focus on more meaningful tasks.<br /><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">To Accelerate Business Processes.</span> When you stop wasting time on mundane, time-consuming processes, you’ll be able to move forward with your core offering a lot faster.<br /><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">To Share Risks.</span> When you delegate a part of non-focus functionality by outsourcing it to a third-party vendor, you give away the responsibility and related risks.","materialsDescription":"<h3 class=\"align-center\">What are the Types of IT Outsourcing?</h3>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Project-Based Model.</span> The client hires a team to implement the part of work that is already planned and defined. The project manager from the outsourced team carries full responsibility for the quality and performance of the project.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Dedicated Team Model.</span> The client hires a team that will create a project for them, and they will work only on that project. Unlike the project-based model, a dedicated team is more engaged in your project. In this model, an outsourced team becomes your technical and product advisor. So it can offer ideas and suggest alternative solutions.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Outstaff Model.</span> It's a type of outsourcing in IT when you don't need a full-fledged development team and hire separate specialists. Sometimes the project requires finding a couple of additional professionals, and you're free to hire outstaff workers to cover that scope of work.</p>\r\n<h3 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are IT Outsourcing examples?</span></h3>\r\nThe individual or company that becomes your outsourcing partner can be located anywhere in the world — one block away from your office or on another continent.\r\nA Bay Area-based startup partnering with an app development team in Utah and a call center in the Philippines, or a UK-based digital marketing agency hiring a Magento developer from Ukraine are both examples of outsourcing.\r\n<h3 class=\"align-center\">Why You Should Use IT Outsourcing</h3>\r\nNow that you know what IT outsourcing is, its models, and types, it's time to clarify why you need to outsource and whether you really need it. Let's go over a few situations that suggest when to opt for IT outsourcing.\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">You are a domain expert with idea</span></li></ul>\r\nIf you're an industry expert with the idea that solves a real problem, IT outsourcing is your choice. In this case, your main goal is to enter the market and test the solution fast. An outsourced team will help you validate the idea, build an MVP to check the hypothesis, and implement changes in your product according to market needs. It saves you money, time and lets you reach the goal.\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">You have an early-stage startup</span></li></ul>\r\nIt's a common case that young startups spend money faster than they get a solid team and a ready-to-market product. The Failory found that financial problems are the 3rd reason why startup fails. So it makes more sense to reduce costs by hiring an outsourced team of professionals while your business lives on investor's money. You may employ a full-cycle product development studio covering all the blind spots and bringing your product to life.\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">You need a technical support</span></li></ul>\r\nEven if you already have a ready solution, but it demands some technical improvements – frameworks for backend components, new language, integrations with enterprise software, UX&amp;UI design – it makes more sense to find an experienced partner. There are many functions that IT outsourcing can cover, and again it saves you the time you'd otherwise spend on looking for qualified staff.<br /><br /><br />","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_IT_outsourcing.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]}],"partnershipProgramme":null}},"aliases":{},"links":{},"meta":{},"loading":false,"error":null},"implementations":{"implementationsByAlias":{},"aliases":{},"links":{},"meta":{},"loading":false,"error":null},"agreements":{"agreementById":{},"ids":{},"links":{},"meta":{},"loading":false,"error":null},"comparison":{"loading":false,"error":false,"templatesById":{},"comparisonByTemplateId":{},"products":[],"selectedTemplateId":null},"presentation":{"type":null,"company":{},"products":[],"partners":[],"formData":{},"dataLoading":false,"dataError":false,"loading":false,"error":false},"catalogsGlobal":{"subMenuItemTitle":""}}