Background

The organisation that I will be looking at is a software developing company called

Connection Software. The Company was formed in 1986 and its headquarters are
based in London. However they employ a team of carefully selected developers from
all over the world and collaboration and coordination is done online. Their core
business is developing value added SMS services with protocol conversion to
corporate and non-corporate clients found on 6 continents.
Connection software is a business to business supplier offering most of its services
to mobile network operators and large to medium sized cooperates. They pride
themselves in having a wide range of bulk SMS solutions that they deliver through
PC and mobile applications. Their products are versatile and capable of working in
any language and enable incompatible systems to interoperate. The products can
also be rebranded to suit the preferences of any corporate clients and since they
have clients on almost all continents their products can be tailor made with local
content and facilities. In June 2014 alone they facilitated the delivery of SMSs in 227
countries through mobile and satellite phones.
Some of their key corporate partners include Motorola, Vodafone, Reuters, Hewlett
Packard and British Telecom. They are a RAM Mobile Data Business Partner and
have long standing relationships with specialist providers like Page One
Communications.
Clients have a choice of having a system that is fully managed by Connection
software or one where they have complete autonomy over in terms of operation but
with Connection software providing full support and maintenance or a situation
where the client operates the system completely independent of Connection
software.
Product Range
Connections Software is a world renowned provider of off the shelf and tailor made
SMS products. These products include:
Mobile Messenger - This is an SMS PC application that is used to send and receive
text messages all over the world from a desktop. It is free and downloadable from
their site. It is designed for both office and home users and it integrates most of the
common address book databases. The product is re-brandable and currently
Vodafone UK is using it as a Vodafone product.
Rio - Rio is an SMS utility that can be used by corporates who intend to send
messages from numerous desktops .It is designed to offer a robust delivery system
with failsafe routing.
Drop-It Drop-It is a free, lightweight, robust, standards-based Windows Service
that makes it easy to send and receive plain SMS text messages in almost any
language. It is designed mainly to automate SMS integration with other applications
and is not typically used by human beings.
Price: Free.

Full System Solutions
Babel Box Babelbox is designed for infrastructure suppliers who need an off-the-
shelf flexible product to connect incompatible messaging systems For further
information please contact sales.
Price: from (approximately) US$10000 including hardware.
Timbuktu Timbuktu is a message switch for corporate and SMS service
providers. Timbuktu is fault tolerant, resilient, redundant and scalable system able to
support 2000 or 500,000 customers. In service and under continuous development
since 1998 it is a mature, safe, product.
Price: from (approximately) US$100000 including hardware. More info...

Free Developer Support
SMS SDK

Use Connection Software's SMS SDK to rapidly integrate our SMS service into your
application development. Microsoft Visual C++ and Visual Basic projects
demonstrating how to use the DLL in your applications is included with this
distribution. We use this SDK in our own highly popular Mobile Messenger product.
Free of charge

Hex Converter Convert a binary file into a hex file. Just drag and drop your
binary file (e.g. gif, jpeg, pgn image) into this application and a hex version of the file
will be written into the same directory. Works with multiple files.
Free of charge download.

API Sample Code We have a large library of free source code samples that you
may find helpful when developing your own application using our APIs (Perl, PHP,
VC++, C#.NET, VB.NET, J2SE, and more).
Free of charge downloads.
Microsoft Support Files Microsoft support files which may be required when
installing our products on some systems. Do not install these files unless the
programs indicate that these files are required.
Free of charge download.


Software Development


.

Connection Software provides off-the-shelf and individually tailored solutions to meet clients'
specific needs. We have an intimate knowledge of UNIX, Microsoft Windows, data communications,
relational databases and the Internet.

.

How we work
We start by either following the clear brief from the client, or we work with the client to develop an
agreed brief for the project. The project is then undertaken using a well defined working
methodology and always to the requirements of our in-house Quality Management System
including: -
Operating to the very highest confidentiality and security standards
Having clear time and cost targets or parameters
Having regular information exchanges and progress meetings.
Our goals are that: -

The product works
It is simple, clear and easily maintained
It is on time and to budget.
We ensure, through regular progress meetings, that the client is kept fully informed and that we are
kept fully in touch - the two way process.
And as a customer you will have access to your private section of our Extranet so you can report
problems and download the solutions that you need.


People
Our team of programmers is very carefully selected. They have to meet four clear requirements
before they join Connection Software.
Some are engineers - they have to match, or be better than, the best in the field! We seek only the
exceptional in terms of their experience and abilities. Our staff are top C++ programmers with
extensive UNIX and/or Windows programming experience.
Some are designers - inherently oriented towards problem analysis and solution. Our aim is always
to produce simple readable solutions that work. We encourage creativity in the broadest sense but
we are allergic to "clever" solutions.
Some are customer focused, there to provide the best possible customer support.
All are team players - both within our organisation and when they are working within client teams.
Our programmers operate well in team environments helping clients at all times to achieve their
objectives subject only to never compromising the very high professional standards we work to in
Connection Software.
All are discreet. We work on sensitive material often in-house. Our team has to be completely
trustworthy and achieve the full and total confidence of all our clients.

Our Offer
We doubt if any other software organization working in the field of Mobile Data Communications
can provide the breadth of experience and genuine commitment to quality that exists in our team.

Our expertise is highly focused on real time communications.

We develop client/server systems as well as stand alone UNIX and Windows applications. We
understand and use a wide range of standards and protocols including. Naturally we are highly
Internet focused.

Our normal development environment includes both UNIX and MS-Windows. We have been a Linux
house for since 1998 but also deliver on Solaris and HPUX.
SMS This page was last modified at 10:52 UTC on Tuesday June 09, 2009

Skills

Software Development

Development Languages:

C++, Java, JavaScript, J2ME, Symbian, VB Expect, Sendmail



Database:

MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server



Web:

LAMP: Linux, Apache, Perl, PHP, MySQL, XML, SOAP, XHTML, WAP, HTML 5, Ajax, Javascript, JSON,
CSS, RWD



Operating Systems:

Linux Windows: 3 / 95 / 98 / NT / 2000 / Me / 2003 / XP / Vista / Windows 7



Servers:

MS Exchange Server



Protocols:

HTTP SIP IMAP CTC-2 ETSI (numerous) MDNS NTP OIS SMPP SMTP SNPP TAP TNPP UCP TCP/IP X.25
etc.



Voice over IP

Asterisk, SIP, Cisco IP phone configuration, Dialogic DIVA




Drop-It Drop-It is a free, lightweight, robust, standards-based Windows Service that makes it easy to
send and receive plain SMS text messages in almost any language. It is designed mainly to automate
SMS integration with other applications and is not typically used by human beings.
Price: Free.

Full System Solutions
Babel Box Babelbox is designed for infrastructure suppliers who need an off-the-shelf flexible
product to connect incompatible messaging systems For further information please contact sales.
Price: from (approximately) US$10000 including hardware.
Timbuktu Timbuktu is a message switch for corporate and SMS service providers. Timbuktu is
fault tolerant, resilient, redundant and scalable system able to support 2000 or 500,000 customers.
In service and under continuous development since 1998 it is a mature, safe, product.
Price: from (approximately) US$100000 including hardware. More info...

Free Developer Support
SMS SDK

Use Connection Software's SMS SDK to rapidly integrate our SMS service into your application
development. Microsoft Visual C++ and Visual Basic projects demonstrating how to use the DLL in
your applications is included with this distribution. We use this SDK in our own highly popular Mobile
Messenger product.
Free of charge

Hex Converter Convert a binary file into a hex file. Just drag and drop your binary file (e.g. gif, jpeg,
pgn image) into this application and a hex version of the file will be written into the same directory.
Works with multiple files.
Free of charge download.

API Sample Code We have a large library of free source code samples that you may find
helpful when developing your own application using our APIs (Perl, PHP, VC++, C#.NET, VB.NET, J2SE,
and more).
Free of charge downloads.
Microsoft Support Files Microsoft support files which may be required when installing our products
on some systems. Do not install these files unless the programs indicate that these files are required.
Free of charge download.


Overall software development process used by the organization

- We mostly use Waterfall SDLC and sometimes Agile SDLC.

- Waterfall implies a knowhow of how to get to a required result e.g. a required system and
thus we use it on projects where we are fairly confident we know what is required to complete the
task.

- The waterfall model has these following stages:

1. Preliminary discussions -> informal and relaxed discussions where customer will often not be in
a position to commit at this stage

2. User Requirements Specification -> plain English outline of what the customer requires

3. Estimate (not a quotation but a best guess)

4. Functional Specification -> critical document in that it contractually defines what we will
deliver to the customer

5. Acceptance Test Specification -> is used to help validate the project. It relies on conformance
to the Functional Specification as the definition of success

6. Quotation

7. Contract

8. Peer Review -> Peer Reviews of all aspects of a project take place regularly - typically weekly

9. Design Specification -> Summary of the proposed Implementation Strategy.

10. Implementation specification -> intended as a full, but not tedious, definition of the detailed
methods to be used to implement a system

11. Project Planning -> provides clearly defined milestones and short term goals.

12. Coding

13. Module testing -> Every module that is defined in the Design Specification should be subject to
specific and exhaustive module functional tests

14. Final integration and testing ->Testing should be carried out after final integration though one
will often be highly confident that the product will work in view of the extensive module testing that
has taken place.

15. User documentation -> user guides and support documentation

16. Installation and Upgrade Procedures

17. Certificate of conformance

18. After delivery support

19. Post-mortem -> reviews the whole process for a particular project. A post-mortem provides an
opportunity to note effective and ineffective strategies with a view to improving our working
methods.


- We use the Agile approach on projects or works where we have a concept but have a lot more
unknowns than there are knowns with respect to requirements. Through rapid iterative steps that
are evaluated and lessons learnt on each pass, we get to the point where we have converted
unknowns to knowns. We use agile to get to a point where we have enough knowledge on a task or
project to them migrate to a waterfall model.

- The Agile model has these following stages:

1. Preliminary discussions

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> ITERATION OCCURS HERE with each stage adding upon the
last

2. User requirement specification -> this will be sketch at best on the first iteration

3. Functional specification -> This document will undergo many revisions internally and with the
customer as the unknowns are filled based on results from iterative development steps

4. Development/coding/testing

5. Developer notes -> document maintained by the developer detailing though progressions and
practices being applied

6. Peer review

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

7. Waterfall model usually incorporated here.





Level of requirements engineering done on software development projects in the organization and
tools used

- Requirements engineering takes the approach of: requirements identification find out what
are the requirements, requirements analysis and negotiation discuss with client each requirement
and resolving requirements conflict, drafting of requirements specification, requirements validation -
checking that requirements meet stakeholders needs, requirements change management manage
changes to requirements as system is developed.

- Sometimes clients will not have an idea of what their requirements are, in part or in full and
this process includes a variety of people namely, the customer (sales, marketing or any individuals
who can contribute at this stage) and a system analyst/programmer.

- Requirements gathering is usually conducted over face to face meetings with the client. We
may also gather requirements from existing systems, documentation provided or analyzing existing
business processes if available/possible but the meetings are a good foundational source.

- We use Microsoft word to create documents, yED Graph Editor
(http://www.yworks.com/en/products_yed_about.html) to create flow charts/use case diagrams
and sometimes mind maps as tools in requirements engineering.