Month: July 2010

adm Group, the largest owner-managed call center company in Germany, and Altitude Software, a leading independent global contact center solutions vendor, have set up a customized contact center solution for T-COM’s hotline on record time. T-COM, a legacy telephone and fixed network carrier and IPTV operator company within the Deutsche Telekom Group, has recently decided to outsource about 45,000 employees to a new service company. In this process, the main customer hotline for T-COM – called KT1000 – was set to be outsourced to several partner companies, one of them being the adm Group. To this effect, T-COM provided adm Group with a fully locked LAN-infrastructure for PC’s and servers, thus ruling out the local deployment of software on the agent PC’s.

T-COM required an inbound campaign with complex reporting, real-time monitoring, and agent-specific listen-in and recording functionality, supporting quality management. T-COM urged adm Group to set up a contact center solution for a complete support system, 500 seats and 600 well-trained agents – spread over three locations – in as little as six weeks. adm Group had exactly 1,008 hours at its disposal to get everything in place before the first call would arrive.

The solution adm Group came up with is based on Altitude Software technology. adm asked for a VoIP system, but with classic E1 connects, based on IP hardphones with an embedded browser. The solution had to be able to scale to 250 seats per site with access to adm databases to build its own interfaces for reports and monitoring applications. Altitude Software designed a solution for 600 agents, distributed across the contact centers in Mannheim, Berlin, and Rostock, on time.

“Altitude Software allowed us to build a specialized system for the T-COM project within a very narrow timeframe, providing us with all necessary functionality. The VoIP system offers a reliable solution with high quality of speech. As a matter of fact, we have started working on an outbound set-up based on Altitude technology as well,” declared Paul-Daniel Weeber, Application Developer adm Group. The solution is based on the Altitude uCI multimedia customer interaction suite, and on Altitude’s vBOx IP communications platform for inbound calls, including full recording and remote listening functionality.

The solution supported an additional webservice interface, that was integrated to allow instant reporting on the number of available agents. The interface also asks for additional information about each accepted call and displays it on the agent’s hardphone. adm also had developed a second interface: a traffic light system (i.e. “Ampelsteuerung”) that shows green light for call routing when an agent is actually ready to handle the call. This interface uses additional information coming from the Altitude database and from customized server components running on the Altitude Assisted Server. The so called “traffic light” server is based on a JAVA application server and was developed by adato GmbH. The adato Webservice interacts with the Callcontrol a web-Interface for managing the entire T-Com project.

About Altitude Software

Altitude Software is a leading independent contact centre vendor with the Altitude Unified Customer Interactionâ„¢ (Altitude uCI) product line. Altitude uCI manages and improves customer relationships for each new interaction in a wide range of contact centres, from SMEs to large multisite organisations.

Altitude uCI is a cost-effective application suite conceived to improve the overall productivity of the contact centre. Since Altitude uCI was engineered to integrate easily with enterprise front office and back-office systems, Altitude uCI delivers significant cost benefits, revenue benefits, and intangible benefits with a limited upfront investment. Altitude uCI not only allows users to achieve return on investment in a limited time frame, but also provides a successful solution to their customer interaction and organisational efficiency strategies. Altitude Software serves around 700 customers (with more than 170.000 agents) of all sizes in 55 countries worldwide, both directly and through a wide network of partners. Altitude Software has 15 Offices in four continents. Please visit us at www.altitude.com.

Software development is the translation of a user need or marketing goal into a software product. Software development is sometimes understood to encompass the processes of software engineering combined with the research and goals of software marketing to develop computer software product. This is in contrast to marketing software, which may or may not involve new product development. It is important to understand both processes and/or facilitate collaboration between both engineering and marketing in the total software development process. Marketing involvement is also known as software requirements analysis.

There can be various Types of Software’s like Media and Web-Development software, Enterprise infrastructure software etc.Though many variations are possible, a Web application is commonly structured as a three-tiered application. In its most common form, a Web browser is the first tier, an engine using some dynamic Web content technology (e.g., CGI, PHP, Java Servlets or Active Server Pages (ASP) is the middle tier, and a database is the third tier. As of 2006, Java remains one of the most common programming languages for writing web applications.

Many IT Companies in India offers a rich repertoire of software services to its clients seeking customized software solutions. Be it complete office automation or database driven solutions. They provide you with customized software at competitive prices with free training and support. Customized Software Solutions are very much required as Standard software usually do not cater to all your business requirements. Even the best fit software bundle will probably meet at the most 70% of what you actually want. Any standard software either does not meet all your requirements or the high end ones will carry features you will never use. Many IT Companies provide clients with the exact tailor-made software solutions that will meet their specific business requirements. They in general have a standardized software development methodology which helps them provide cost-effective and efficient software solutions to virtually any industry.

“Software risk management is important because it helps avoid disasters, rework, and overkill, but more importantly because it stimulates win-win situations” – The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), 1999.

Risk is defined as “The possibility of suffering harm or loss; danger.” Even if we’re not familiar with the formal definition, most of us have an innate sense of risk. Risks shape many of our behaviors. Software Technical Risk can be defined as a measure of the probability and severity of adverse effects inherent in the development of software that does not meet its intended functions and performance requirements.

The term Risk Management is applied in a number of diverse disciplines. To many social analysts, politicians, and academics it is the management of environmental and nuclear risks. Software Risk Management is a proactive approach for minimizing the uncertainty and potential loss associated with a project.

It includes the set of practices that enable software development projects to identify, prioritize, address, eliminate and manage specific software risk items before they become threats to success or major sources of rework. Some categories of risk include product size, business impact, customer-related, process, technology, development environment, staffing (size and experience), schedule, and cost. Awareness of Software Risk Management has been increasing in the industry.

The primary goal of a software development project is to develop code and documentation that will meet the project’s requirements. The risks are measured in the testing phase. The specific attributes measured during software development are Maintainability-for ease of finding and fixing the errors, Reusability and above all Structure/Architecture – Evaluation of the constructs within a module to identify possible error-prone modules. Once code has been generated and completed, unit testing, formal testing – System, Integration, and Acceptance Testing – begins which usually emphasizes on correctness and reliability of the software.

Major software projects have the highest probability of being cancelled or delayed of any known business activity. Once deployed, software projects often display excessive error densities and low levels of reliability. However, it is not a law of nature that software projects will run late, be cancelled, or be unreliable after deployment. A careful program of risk analysis and abatement can reduce the probability of major software disasters, and also shorten average development cycles at the same time.

Poor estimations and planning, wrong status report of projects with misleading and unacceptably poor software quality and reliability are some of those serious and real issues against software organizations which are agreed by the software executives and managers themselves. Additional risk factors like new major requirements in mid-development and harmful schedule pressure by the executives that damages quality makes it crucial to examine the root causes which includes process factors, technology and product factors, and organizational factors, organizational capabilities and explore the current state of the art for minimizing their harmful effects.

Some paradigms, principles, techniques and tools are used to manage the risks.
The paradigm is a framework for software risk management. From this framework, a project may structure a risk management practice best fitting into its project management structure. It is usually a cyclic process containing identification, analyze, plan, track, control, formal or informal communication for achieving a common goal.

The maturity framework into which these quality principles have been adapted was first inspired by Philip Crosby in his book Quality is Free [Crosby 79]. The staged structure of the SW-CMMSM is based on product quality principles that have existed for the last 60 years. The framework provides the solutions on the basis of seven main risk management principles—shared product vision, teamwork, global perspective, forward-looking view, open communication, integrated management, and continuous process.

These principles have been adapted into a maturity framework that establishes the project management and engineering foundation during the initial stages, and quantitatively controls the process during the more advanced stages of maturity.

Top-down risk estimation maps project risk into schedule completion dates. Bottom-up risk management puts detail behind the top-down approach. Bottom-up risk management identifies underlying project strengths and risks that drive the top-down risk estimate.

Using the Project Self-Assessment Kit, these results can be achieved quickly, easily, and confidentially. The SATC has applied its metrics experience and some concepts from theoretical models of software quality to develop a unique model for evaluation of quality and project risks. This model fits the needs of project managers of many reputable organizations like NASA and GSFC because the model is dynamic, not static, in the fact that it allows the production of multiple snapshots of project status across the development.

The data is used to make projects about specific project risks at project milestones. The model uses a broad range of measures for both software products and development processes. The model is applicable across the development life cycle. The model’s metrics are derived based on aspects of the attributes that answer questions of the project managers. The model includes analysis guidelines for the data collected.

“Risk Guide 2.30 risk management tools” also helps in managing the risks in software development because for successful risk management effectiveness, continuous and open communication is prerequisite. Therefore, provide the project stakeholders a broad and highly available communication channel through which they can communicate risk-related information. On top of this communication facility establish continuous risk assessment process based on three concepts: reviews, snapshots and reports that underpin the three layers of processing the risk-related information: identification, analysis and reporting and something which creates a great ease in software risk management is risk database which should be equipped with learning facilities to provide for “learning from experience”.

The SEI Software Risk Evaluation (SRE) Service is a diagnostic and decision-making tool that enables the identification, analysis, tracking, mitigation, and communication of risks in software-intensive programs. An SRE is used to identify and categorize specific program risks emanating from product, process, management, resources, and constraints. The programs own personnel participate in the identification, analysis, and mitigation of risks facing their own development effort.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Large software projects are very hazardous business ventures. For projects above 10,000 function points, cancellations, delays and cost overruns have been the norm rather than the exception. But careful analysis of the root causes of large software project delays and disasters indicate that most of the problems stem from inaccurate estimation, inaccurate status reporting, and lack of historical data from similar projects.

All of these root causes can be minimized or even eliminated by the adoption of formal estimating methods and tools, by formal monthly status reports of both quantitative and qualitative data, and by benchmark analysis of similar projects to provide a solid basis of what can and cannot be accomplished.

The results of these activities are used to develop an actionable framework of risk mitigation actions based on assessor experience and individual project characteristics. Formal risk assessment is most effective for projects with relatively significant risk. In addition, the organization for which a project is being assessed needs to have sufficient project management infrastructure to be able to take action based on the results. The organization also needs to have a commitment to improving project execution effectiveness.

At the moment, software engineering is one of the fastest growing professions because an increasing number of people are pursuing careers within this engineering field. The primary reason for this rise in software engineering job applicants is because the industry has been experiencing unprecedented industrial growth and expansion. Another reason for this software engineering labor market boom is the fact that there are now many specialist recruitment firms which deal with software engineering jobs. Over the years, the most experienced recruitment agencies of this sort have streamlined the whole process for obtaining jobs within this sector. Quanta can be described as a specialist recruitment agency with has a wealth of experience in software engineering recruiting. This is because the company has over six years of experience in terms of providing effective recruitment solutions to this sector.

Furthermore, during this period of time, Quanta has gained a good reputation and track record within the engineering recruitment sector. In fact, they can be regarded as one of the leading recruitment agencies for software engineering jobs. Quanta has helped numerous new software engineering job applicants with finding suitable positions. They have also helped seasoned software engineering professionals with securing their next roles. The success which Quanta has achieved in this area of recruitment is largely due to the fact that they are a recruitment company, which fully understands the organizational and cultural requirements of both their candidate and corporate clients. They are able to do this because they build and maintain close relationships with top software engineering management. These network of relationships and communication links which Quanta maintains, also allows them to obtain immediate visibility on the latest software engineering positions.

At this junction, it is worth mentioning that Quanta has some of the most sophisticated and advanced back office tools in the recruitment industry. This gives them a distinct edge over other competing recruitment agencies. Their team of experienced recruitment consultants have a good track record in terms of providing high quality customer service to all Quanta’s clients. As such, they are fully capable of providing expert recruitment advice and guidance. Through their candidate care program, Quanta show that they have a genuine interest in seeing that all their candidates succeed in their new roles. The candidate care program was designed to provide their candidates with extensive career help and support even after a suitable job placement has been secured.

Back in the day, purchasing a cell phone was simple. Not so long ago, cell phone users felt on top of the world if they owned a phone that could take pictures. Today cell phones can do just about everything that a regular computer can do. Many people today use their cell phones for much more than making calls. Making phone calls is the last priority for some people. When searching for a new cell phone it is beneficial to you if you identify your needs and what you want your cell phone to be able to do for you. Phones that operated with the Android system are able to do many things. Below are some of the Android phones with top rankings available, now.

Highly favored is the HTC Legend. On the website, Know Your Mobile dot com, it was ranked number one. The HTC Legend is not the first Android phone but is rather high in demand. It’s possible this is due to the alliance of the HTC user interface with the Android 2.1 operating system. It has a touch screen and is just a little larger than three inches in size. One of the well-liked features is the control it offers. It resembles a track pad or joystick style of control. Also, it has Wi-Fi capability and GPS.

If you have T-Mobile, you can choose the popular Android phone – the Pulse Mini. This phone is made for the budget conscious cell phone purchaser who wants all the perks of an Android phone but does not want to pay through the roof. The touch screen on this phone is not even three inches. It comes with a 3.2 megapixel camera that has an LED Flash that helps the photographer snap even better photos. The phone runs Android 2.1 software. This phone is different than the typical Pulse phone because is has a headphone jack.

T-Mobiles’s G2 Touch comes after the G1, which was the very first Android phone from Google. This model is better than the former model, which featured a slide out keyboard and was rather cumbersome to carry. The keyboard is a thing of the past, due to the favoritism of a touch screen that challenges the iPhone. The camera has five megapixel capabilities and you are able to have an eight-hour conversation before the battery dies and needs to be re-charged. However, it is crucial to note this model is based equally on the HTC Hero and the G1, so if you’re not a fan of T-Mobile, you should be able to find an equivalent phone with a different provider.

Choosing a cellular phone to buy can be hard work. There are tons of options out there! Back in the day, most people just went for the free upgrades offered by their cell phone providers. Of course, that was back in the day when cell phones were used exclusively for making phone calls. Today cell phone are miniature computers that provide users with access to the Internet, making phone calls, snapping photos, filming video and a number of other things. The foremost Android phones rank among the best phones on the market.