Custom Development

SwitchLane was founded by people with extensive application development backgrounds and building solutions for our clients has always been a core part of our business. We can take ownership of the entire Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) for you and handle everything from requirements definition through design, development, testing and deployment. If you don't need all of that, we're also happy to supplement your team for only certain phases of the SDLC. While we prefer to use Agile processes when the choice is ours, we can adapt to your established processes as well when integrating with your IT team.

In addition to process flexibility, we also have location flexibility. Depending on your preferences, we can assemble a team to work onsite in your offices, to work remotely within the US or to work out of our Indian office in an offshore mode. "Offshore" is a term that sometimes scares people because they have had or heard about bad experiences that were intended to save money but resulted in poor quality. Our executives have experienced the same thing in prior jobs, but have learned tremendously from these experiences. At SwitchLane, we make sure that you have a strong leader assigned to your team who has good communication skills and who understands the cultural differences between the US and other countries, two things that can cause a project to fail if not handled properly. Our customer testimonials speak volumes to the success we have had through this approach.

Our team has established skills in a number of different technologies and our network of partners extends these capabilities even further. To learn more about the types of custom development work we do, please click through the tabs below.

Web development is a broad term that can mean different things to different people. In its simplest form, a web site or application is one that is used through a browser such as Google Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, etc. A web application may be exposed to the public internet or be confined to a private intranet. The content and functionality it provides could be very simple or highly complex. The possibilities are nearly endless.

Unfortunately, the technologies used to build web applications are almost just as endless. Initially learning these technologies and then keeping pace with them as they evolve can be a daunting task, especially for companies that don't specialize in technology. However, just about any company these days needs to at least have a public internet site if they want to remain competitive and relevant. That's where SwitchLane comes in. We can build a web application for you using most of today's modern technologies and by doing so we take the complexity out of your hands.

Software used to be simpler to develop when it only ran on traditional computers such as desktops, laptops and servers. Nowadays, mobile devices including smartphones and tablets nearly outnumber traditional computers. The software that we use on these devices is generally divided into "mobile web" and "native apps" categories. Mobile web software is nothing more than a web application that has been adapted to work well in a mobile browser on a much smaller screen. Initially, companies had to build and maintain separate versions of their web applications to run on traditional computers versus mobile devices. This approach has now been replaced with the use of "responsive design" where a web page can dynamically rearrange and/or resize its content for different screen sizes. For example, this website is responsive.

Native apps are a completely different approach to mobile software. These apps are built using technologies specific to each mobile operating system such as iOS (Apple), Android (Google) and Windows Phone (Microsoft). The major advantage of native apps is that they are able to take advantage of much deeper device capabilities than a mobile web application can. For example, a native app can access and interact with your phone's GPS system, accelerometer, digital compass, etc whereas a mobile web application cannot. However, the major disadvantage of native apps is that you have to build separate ones for each operating system if you want to provide support for a wide range of devices. SwitchLane's team has experience developing native apps on each of today's major mobile operating systems.

Databases of one type or another typically underlie most software applications. In addition, database technologies themselves form the primary foundation of certain types of systems such as data marts, data warehouses and OLAP cubes. In the modern world, companies have to deal with an ever-increasing amount of data being generated by a wide range of systems and devices. The ability to collect and store this data but also analyze it to make informed business decisions is more important than ever to be competitive and to be able to react quickly to changing market conditions. The term "Big Data" has been coined to describe this phenomenon even though "big" is a relative term. Data scientists often break down the challeges of dealing with such data into four V's: 1) Volume - The sheer amount of data being stored and analyzed. 2) Velocity - The rate at which new data is collected and at which the volume is growing. 3) Variety - The number of different types and forms of data being collected. 4) Veracity - The accuracy or uncertainty of the data.

For many years, relational database platforms dominated the market and in large part followed a slow technology evolution when compared with other parts of the IT world. In the early 21st century another form of database platform, commonly referred to as NoSQL, experienced a tremendous burst in popularity triggered by the needs of companies working with larger amounts of data than the relational platforms could support at scale. In addition, a new generation of powerful reporting and data visualization tools have emerged as well. Ever since, technology evolution in the database world has accelerated dramatically and keeping up with the evolution has become a challenge. SwitchLane and our extended network of partners can help you to navigate the challenge and implement the right solution for your specific business needs.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are used to manage a company's interactions with their current and prospective customers. The functionality of a CRM system can range from simple things such as keeping track of contact information and sales leads to sophisticated things such as deep data analytics to understand how to maximize the relationship with a given customer across all communication channels. Companies across the size spectrum from small to very large can benefit from proper use of a CRM system to understand their sales pipeline and to ensure timely follow up on open items with their customers.

Some companies can get all of the CRM functionality they need using an "out of the box" product, either as a SaaS solution or hosted within their infrastructure. However, it is common to implement customizations and integrations to exchange data between your CRM system and other critical systems. SwitchLane and our extended network of partners has experience with these matters and would be happy to help you evaluate your options.