The image of people working in the IT field has changed in the last years. Ridiculous stereotypes about programmers have been broken and now it is really cool to be able to code and programmers have become the elite of the 2010s. However, when we talk about IT professionals, we do no talk only…

CRM systems, or customer relationship management systems, are one of the much-needed solutions in the business environment. Many organizations implement them to optimize internal processes, improve service quality and enhance relations with both customers and partners. Certainly, travel companies are not the exception. Facing high competition and necessity in constant development, they are nearly always…

  Business and communication are inseparable. Business representatives need to communicate with their clients and clients need quick and straightforward feedback from the business. It doesn’t matter whether you are a customer in a supermarket or hire a software development team – knowing that you can always get a rich and friendly feedback certainly gives…

  Custom Relationship Management software has made a huge step forward for the past years. Starting the way from enterprise contact and client databases, CRM has transformed to cloud solutions that can include marketing and sales automation tools, as well as can be tailored to business-specific needs and peculiarities. And now analysts predict CRM market…

  A small entry for a start:   RabbitMQ is a queue server which allows different applications to interact with each other according to AMQP protocol, widely used by such corporations as Google, Microsoft, NASA, Red Hat, VMware, AT&T.   RabbitMQ server is employed for building service architecture when the following selected services process resource…

  Nowadays eLearning is one of the most convenient ways for self-education, receiving additional education, and building an efficient training system for employees. Though eLearning solutions appeared and became spread not long ago, today it is a popular trend in the education field. There are a lot of benefits to making educational programs digital. One…

  SCORM. Probably, you’ve never heard about it. Even some eLearning professionals haven’t. And it’s natural as it concerns some technical things. Nevertheless, SCORM has great significance for building solutions for this industry. So, in this post we will explain, what does SCORM means, why it is so important for eLearning course development, and also…

  One of the client’s type that we succeed to work with is entrepreneurs who want to launch own project to test a hypothesis. Typically, it is called a startup 🙂 Another type is mature companies which are willing to try a new channel for interaction with clients. Here at Smartum, we’ve been helping launching…

  A plenty of projects are being developed on iOS. As you probably know, iOS and Android operating systems are the major players on the world market. At the moment iOS takes 27,2% of the market share and Android 66,82% (statistics is provided for August 2016). Comparing to the results of Gartner February research, (iOS…

  Today there are a lot of talks around business process automation. Companies integrate software solutions to raise efficiency of sales and marketing departments, optimize such processes as decision-making, request processing, communication within the enterprise, and much more. There are a plenty of possibilities for you to choose, from custom mobile and web app development…

  Fintech has been one of the highly trendy words in the technology world in the last years along with big data and the internet of things. And just like these, the meaning of fintech is somewhat clear and somewhat vague at the same time. In this post, we will explain to you what exactly…

Fintech has been one of the highly trendy words in the technology world in the last years along with big data and the internet of things. And just like these, the meaning of fintech is somewhat clear and somewhat vague at the same time. In this article we will explain to you what exactly fintech…

  Big data has become one of the most trendy conceptions in the technology field. It is not only interesting from the scientific point of view, but also from the viewpoint of applying big data software solutions in business. In a recent article, we have described this concept and explained why it is so popular….

  Document management apps are an effective tool for optimizing business processes in various fields. In the previous article, we have explained which features are essential for every document management system. This time we will go through the main benefits a document management application can bring to your business.   1. Document management apps are…

  Information technologies have penetrated almost every field of our life. Companies use various kinds of software systems that simplify and optimize business processes. In this article, we will talk about document management systems (shortly called DMS) and web or mobile applications development as document management solutions as well. DMS are used, obviously, to manage…

  CRM software solutions are an effective tool for increasing your enterprise productivity. If you’ve already decided to implement such a system in your enterprise, you should thoroughly think of which features the system must contain. This is a serious task as you don’t want to miss the ones that are necessary for business process…

  Customer Relationship Management systems have changed the way companies work nowadays. This conception implies various features and parameters, thus being rather complex to define in a universal way. If you’ve ever thought about implementing a CRM system in your business, you might have had a number of questions considering the features, benefits and implementation…

The financial sector has its roots deep in centuries. The humanity has gone a long way from using pearls and stones for payments to the ability to send money across the globe within seconds. Thus, financial field and information technology have found an effective synergism to improve the workflow and to bring lots of benefits…

  There are a plenty of tech enterprise solutions you can implement in your business and greatly benefit from that. We were already speaking about business process automation (BPA) software, beacons, IoT apps, location-based services (LBS), customer loyalty programs, and more. In this article, we will refer to Business Intelligence, the topic of high popularity…

  Data, in general, may seem a very abstract concept. And Big Data is probably even more complicated to understand. It is clear and indefinite at the same time. These two words are used in many cases and contexts and may be somewhat confusing. Big Data has been talked about a lot for a few…

  The Internet of Things is going to greatly change the way we live, work, and entertain. According to analyst forecasts, the number of connected devices is going to reach 6.4 billion worldwide this year. And some predictions say that by 2020 there will be 60 billion connected devices! Such a notion as a smart…

  Speaking about watches, this concept has greatly changed in the course of the last years. They are no longer about showing time only. Their function has expanded with the introduction of smart watches. It is no longer a surprise to see a person touching and interacting with his/her wristwatch. Now smart watches implying wearable…

  Healthcare has been an extremely important field for millennia. Optimizing processes is almost as significant as new discoveries and inventions in this industry. As everything goes e- and mobile nowadays, so does the healthcare domain. There are various use cases for mobile and web healthcare applications. In this article, we’ll consider the most significant…

  Having been appeared only a few years ago with major investment from retailers, marketers, and so on, beacons have already gained huge popularity. They leverage this useful technology in a plenty of ways to add value to their mobile apps, provide customers with engaging shopping experience, and gather information about their buying habits. Now…

  Augmented reality (AR) doesn’t belong only to sci-fi films anymore. It could be dreamed about fifty years ago but it is a part of our everyday life now. AR is an evolved technology used in various fields and industries to solve a wide range of problems. There is a number of augmented reality devices…

  Our digital world doesn’t stay still. There are lots of devices on the market that were unthinkable for the average person ten years ago: smart watches, smart glasses, self-driving autos and so on. Among all these classy devices there are small and humble beacons. They are much cheaper than the devices listed above, however,…

  GPS are three letters that even many children are used to nowadays. GPS and location-based services (LBS) are widely used today, especially in mobile applications industry. Location-based services are implemented in apps for individuals as well as for businesses and represent a useful tool for achieving a wide range of goals. Navigation apps are…

  There is a great English idiom “A picture is worth a thousand words”. In this article, we’ll rephrase this idiom to “a prototype is worth a thousand words”. If you’ve ever thought about creating a mobile or a web application, you’ve probably heard the word “prototype”. An interactive prototype is a simple model that…

  If you’ve decided to create a mobile app or a web application, you are to write a Software Requirement Specification (SRS) for your project. It’s a document with a set of client’s requirements for the product. It includes features you want it to have, your design preferences and other basic information that describes the…

If you’ve decided to create a mobile app or a web application, you are to write a Software Requirement Specification (SRS) for your project. It’s a document with a set of client’s requirements for the product. It includes features you want it to have, your design preferences and other basic information that describes the application…

  Great customer service worths great efforts, but the result is what you need – loyal customers. And loyal customers are satisfied returning customers. Exactly they bring the largest part of income to companies, not the new ones. According to Loyalty360, loyal customers visit their favorite shops and places two times more often and purchase…

  Wireframing is one of the first things to do in mobile applications development process and one of the most important steps that define the future success of your product. Open any app market and take a look at some apps on the top chart. They may be all different: messengers, social media apps, fitness…

  Is it true that today a mobile loyalty app is a must-have for any loyalty program? And why should create a loyalty program at all? Many experts claim that it’s a necessity nowadays and practically for any company. But how to encourage business growth and increase profit by building a loyalty program app and…

  There are a lot of programming trends in the tech world, that constantly replace each other: ones are becoming hot and ones going cold. Some trends from the moment of birth gain popularity, some take the back seat, but then again become trends. Everybody remembers Assembly programming language having popularity some time ago, but…

  When deciding to build an application, here comes the question: which factors are the drivers of custom mobile app development time? This is the issue of high concern for customers. Wishing to encourage their business growth and revenue increase, they want to know they will receive the results. In other words, when the project…

  What affects the cost of mobile applications development? Perhaps, one of the most frequent questions we face in our work. The price is the issue of high concern for our customers as the final result largely depends on their budget. How many features will the app have? Which ones will be implemented in the…

  Mobile and web application development with Salesforce has a lot of benefits. Being the largest platform for enterprise app development it provides access to the Internet – so there is no need for buying and managing infrastructure. Salesforce also has such important characteristics as security and scalability. Moreover, sometimes it’s said to be the…

  Many companies wish to automate their business processes to improve employees’ productivity, streamline the total workflow, and increase profit. Reducing intensive activities of labour leads to reducing efforts associated with completing particular tasks as well as optimizing time. However, when comes the decision to automate workflow and there are all necessary resources for that,…

  Though some companies still don’t have their own enterprise apps that help manage business processes and encourage revenue growth, most organizations have already released on the average two or three apps. Moreover, according to Gartner survey on enterprise mobile app development, the majority of them use at least 6 applications for workflow management and…

  Tourism and travel industry is a large sector that includes lots of components: travel agencies, insurance companies, hotels, restaurants, and so on. And this world is going mobile nowadays. A few words about mobile applications on the whole. In 2009 the number of mobile app downloads exceeds 2.5 billion. In 2011 this mark reached…

  When developing a web-service, there are always many points to be considered by the product owner and the development team. The product owner provides his team with project requirements so the team knows exactly what to do. Depending on goals and requirements you should choose application’s architecture from the very start – it surely…

  Application development world is very competitive. The industry is developing by leaps and bounds, so companies when creating an app have to keep up with the times. Now it’s especially important to follow trends, modify tools, approaches, and so on, otherwise, you will lose. And one of the main parts developers must pay attention…

  The biggest goal for any startup team is to actually finish its product and release it – there are many projects that are too ambitious right from the start. It ’s quite common when a small team is trying to create something huge that would take thousands of hours to develop. Eventually, the project…

  Today our world is in application development business. Almost every company has at least two apps aiming at business process automation, brand recognition, or customer loyalty creation. In large organizations, this number reaches even 10 apps and more. Though at first glance it may seem to be too high, most businesses realize that a…

  A few words about the language itself. Java was developed by Sun Microsystems, but in 2010 changed the owner as a result of company’s acquisition by Oracle. Over the past years Java “”made a lodgement” on the first position, taking other languages’ championship away. The latest trends in Java application development   1. The…

  Nowadays you may notice that so-called “cyber attacks” have become as dangerous as “real life” crimes. You can name a dozen of big brands that have become hacker’s victims in past years – Valve, Sony, Microsoft (some might also recall Ashley Madison). These cyber attacks were not that big – all those leak issues…

  The issue of choice between mobile and web applications is quite a headache for many business owners. Both variants are popular, and each of them has its pros and cons. On the whole, to make the right choice isn’t so difficult as it seems to be. To define whether you should choose custom web…

  Functionality, performance, stability – you won’t argue that those are very important for application’s success, will you? However, the first thing that users notice when launching an app, is how it looks. In other words, its design. A common case: if a user isn’t really interested in your application, its mediocre design can easily…

  2004. One truly dark year for all messengers out there. The fact was not so obvious at that point, but before the decade was over, it was clear already – messengers’ popularity was gone. ICQ, AOL, MSN and many others – they’ve all been replaced either with social networks, or more modern messengers (WhatsApp,…

  Choosing a technology for application development is a very important step. There are too many things that depend on this choice. Should you hire Java developers or PHP developers? How big the budget should be? What are the support conditions? Today we will talk about two popular programming languages that are often used for…

  Fun fact: back in 2007, when Apple presented their first iPhone, company’s CEO, Steve Jobs, was against the idea of native third-party applications running on iPhone. His point was that “iOS developers have everything they need if they know how to write mobile applications using the most modern web standards”. So, basically, the idea…

  Minimum viable product (MVP) development has gained huge popularity recently. Focusing on main functions implementation IT companies use MVP as a starting point for running a successful project. Let’s see what MVP means. A minimum viable solution is a first version of a product with minimum functionality made to complete client’s principal tasks and…

  About Salesforce   Salesforce is a worldwide leader in cloud-computing industry, #1 in CRM (Customer Relationship Software) and Service, Customer Engagement Center software. Salesforce is a leading SaaS and PaaS solution provider and the largest platform for business application development. More than 2600 applications are now published and available for lightning-fast installation from AppExchange…

  In a perfect world, there are perfect developers who write perfect code and publish their perfect applications in app stores at first try. Of course, their application succeeds. Too perfect to be true, isn’t it? Unfortunately, we live in an imperfect world, where one cannot be 100% sure about his application idea and create…

  The issue of payment is one of the key moments in the product development process. There are several principal pricing models each of them having its own advantages and disadvantages, being for some projects the most effective solution and for others a week one. A client wanting to develop an application has to answer…

  Back in 2011, when Apple introduced their 1st generation iPad, one could hardly believe, that Californians would be able to reanimate this dead tablet market. It has died many times: in the 80s, 90s, 2000s. All those devices that were released back then had plenty of major flaws, which simply blocked their way to…

  We believe everyone knows that high-quality (!) software product development including mobile and web applications development requires deep technical knowledge, experience, team cohesion, and thoughtful management. The development process is rather complicated including lots of elements and factors necessary for project success. For your clear understanding, we’ll tell you that the very custom software…

  IT technologies are developing by leaps and bounds. It’s a center of huge opportunities for both customers and businesses. Our world has already become mobile, but mobile devices increase process hasn’t ended yet. Analysts say by the end of 2016 there will be two billion smartphone users worldwide resulting in the quick development of…

  So, you’ve decided to start your own mobile application development and you’re full of ideas? Marvelous! But, as always, there is a problem. For example – you have a tight budget. Today we’ll talk about how to cut your expenses on mobile applications development without any quality loss. Let’s start!   Option №1: be…

  For the past few years, our world has been faced with a fast increase in companies offering outsourcing software development services. Today a lot of organizations farm out jobs from their home countries to other ones. Why do they do it? The answer is pretty simple: in order to cut costs. Many companies are…

  Despite the fact that today you can name at least dozen of mobile operating systems, we will talk about two most popular ones (by the way, both of them were developed in California), which summarily hold more than 80% of the market share – iOS by Apple and Android by Google. The smartphone market…

  So basically… What’s Agile?   Many teams that are using Agile probably won’t be able to clearly define its meaning. What is it? A philosophy? Some list of principles? A methodology? Well, actually, all of those are correct. Yes, even a philosophy (though it has nothing to do with Socrates, Kant or Descartes). Agile…

  The world doesn’t stay in one place. It’s constantly developing. Especially a mobile world. We all have noticed people which can’t take a look from their mobile phones, and often it doesn’t matter whether they sit in a cafe with friends or spend time with family. A typical American “sits in” his phone 2…

  Nowadays we often hear about the Internet of things, but not all of us have an exact understanding of its meaning. Many people believe that IoT is only machine-to-machine communication, but the internet of things concept is much wider.   IoT concept   The Internet of things is one whole network which connects devices…

  Although the definition of “startup” is becoming more and more popular nowadays, many people still have a vague idea of its meaning. There are a few definitions, but we’ll give you the one which is important for this topic as we don’t want to burden you with irrelevant information. Eric Ries, author of the…

  In our constantly changing world writing a detailed specification (which takes at least 2-3 months) and developing a product isn’t enough any more for creating a truly high-quality and competitive product. Now the time requires close contact among the team of developers, marketing specialists, business analysts, as well as constant work with feedback from…

Mobile messengers have become very popular recently. At the moment, there are plenty of mobile messengers, such as Viber, WhatsApp, or Telegram, each having its pros and cons. Certainly, in order to take a high place among popular messengers, an application must have not only perfect design and reliable performance but also be easily scalable…

  Recently mobile messenger development has been increasingly gaining popularity. At the moment, there are plenty of mobile messengers, such as Viber, WhatsApp, or Telegram, each having its pros and cons. Such applications have to be able to support heavy loads and be easily scalable which creates certain challenges for developers. That’s why we recommend…

  Nowadays almost everyone starts thinking about developing an application. There are numerous startups trying to make their ideas come true, and more and more businesses choose to automate some tedious processes or promote their goods and services and connect with their customers online. However, the ever-growing popularity of apps has resulted in the occurrence…

Developing a mobile app monetization strategy one of the most important questions you have to answer is whether an app will be paid or free. App monetization strategy is a plan of how to make your product profitable. So, what is the essential criteria to make the right choice?   Here at Smartum Pro we…