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Singapore has the highest number of smartphone users in the world, but desktop computers are used 300% more often for online shopping.
Singapore has the highest number of smartphone users in the world, but desktop computers are used 300% more often for online shopping.
To Next Door Digital, application development has always been about the web. More and more companies follow us, as traditional software is moving to the cloud to be accessed through a browser based interface. While mobile apps certainly have a place in many ecosystems, even they are moving to more hybrid and sustainable web-based solutions now. That’s all very good for us, because this is where we have our expertise and where our development platform of choice – ColdFusion – really excels.
We admit, in some ways we’re a little conservative. It’s not about the tools, it’s about the way you use them. Elegant, well-documented solutions that are built with a minimal set of open technologies are almost always the most flexible and durable. Paradoxically, the greater the simplicity we achieve in our coding, the more complex the applications we can build while keeping them maintainable and extendable. It’s not the latest technology or trend that gives you the advantage, it’s solid, proven methods of ColdFusion software development.
Adobe ColdFusion is the oldest technology for rapidly building bespoke web applications – and it’s great! It’s essentially an abstraction layer build on top of Java, which makes it scalable to the enterprise level and highly extendable. The language of the platform, CFML, allows for the most elegant way of coding. We believe nothing else matches ColdFusion’s awesome combination of development speed and scalability, openness and flexibility. For most applications, we typically use ColdFusion on Wheels as a framework – it’s open source and it extends the innate power of ColdFusion without creating much overhead and without reducing flexibility.
While ColdFusion is great for the backend development, for frontend development we typically opt for HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript/jQuery. While we can work with most databases, MySQL and Aurora are our primary choices. With this limited set of technologies, we can build pretty much anything you can think of. Just as important: it allows us to maintain it, upgrade it, improve it and further build on it with ease. Tomorrow, and years from now.
If it’s development capacity you’re looking for, we offer two different ways to work with us: by the spec, and by the hour. By the hour simply means that you reserve one or more of our senior or junior developers to work under your direction on your project. He or she will retain full access to our team expertise and our coordinators are always there to assure that any possible problem is quickly resolved and communication doesn’t become a bottleneck. With a by the hour solution, you can do your own planning and you’re responsible for the management of your project; this means you also carry the risks and responsibilities that come with that.
For this reason, and, to be honest, because we like to be in control, we typically prefer to work by the spec, and so do most of our clients. Here’s how that works. First, either in writing or in a Skype call, you lay out your goals and requirements. We will summarize it for you in an operational brief and typically we will create wireframes that show you the exact flow of your application. This way, the deliverables will be clear from the start with a minimum of ambiguity. This allows us to give you an exact quotation in advance of what your application is going to cost and how much time it’s going to take before we can deliver it. It’s then up to us to manage your project. This means we can assure it is performed with optimal allocation of resources which is why by the spec usually turns out more cost effective. Once we have accepted your requirements and specifications and you have accepted our quotation, we carry the risks that come with planning and managing your project, so you can focus on other things.
We love partnering up with others who need their projects or their entire development, design and marketing taken care of. We work with advertising agencies who create their own artwork, but who like us to bring their custom creations to life. Independent ColdFusion developers partner with Next Door Digital for extra power and specific expertise when they need it; sometimes they just like us to integrate their backend programming work with our design and frontend integration. If you think we’d make a good match, hit us up. After all, we’re digital neighbors!
For both affiliates and clients we offer a very flexible retainer which we call the Comprehensive Service Contract or CSC. A CSC allows you to reserve a number of hours per month with us at a reduced rate, which you can use for any development, design and marketing work you may have. We guarantee we have the capacity to assist you. Unused hours can be rolled over for one month and you can adjust the number of reserved hours at any time, as long as you do so before the start of the new month. This way, it’s just like having your own design, development and marketing team available whenever you need it, but at a very low cost and with much broader expertise than a smaller company can offer.
Do you think we might be a good partner for you, your company or would you like to discuss your ColdFusion based project with us? Do you have a great idea for a web application and you think we might be the ones to build it for you? Great, let’s talk! You can use our contact form, reach out to us on Facebook Messenger or give us a call.