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Q3's global sourcing model gives the maximum benefit to customers in terms of cost savings, improved quality, access to highly talented professionals, flexibility of operations and reduced time to market.

Company Profile

Based in France, the Client is a leading software product company operating worldwide. It develops affordable and customized software solutions for various platforms. The client acts as a communication organization which specializes in the arena of IT design and successful implementation of IT solutions. The client is involved in providing robust, feature-rich and scalable business solutions both offline as well as online.

Business Situation

Client needed an application for iPhone and BlackBerry with the Front Office features for a Content Management system; which could be configured to operate on multiple types of content modules. The client also needed those multiple components to be developed, which can be integrated with various platforms, like .NET, DotNetNuke, SharePoint, PHP, Joomla, Drupal and used as an add-on by users.

The Super Directory application consists of a group of five modules that are dedicated to professionals that design and sell online and offline information solutions to their end consumers.

The various modules included in the Super Directory application are:

• Contact Directory Module – for website, intranet etc
• Exhibitor Directory Module – for show organizers
• ADS Directory Module – for E-Commerce
• Real Estates Directory Module – for real estate ads
• Job Offer Directory Module – for companies
  

Contact Directory Module

• Perform search on the list of Contacts in the database
• View details of a particular contact
• A photo gallery to browse through images of a contact
• View location of a contact on Google map
• View location of a contact on a custom created map
• Forward the contact information to a 3rd party through Email
• Email the person whose contact details are displayed
  

Exhibitor Directory Module

• Perform search on the list of Exhibitions in the database
• View details of a particular Exhibit
• A photo gallery to browse through images of an Exhibit
• View location of an Exhibit on Google map
• View location of an Exhibit on a custom created map
• Forward the Exhibit details to a 3rd party through Email
• Email the Exhibitor
  

Ads Directory Module

• Perform search on the list of Advertisements in the database
• View details of a particular Advertisement
• A photo gallery to browse through images of an Advertisement
• View location of an Advertiser on Google map
• View location of an Advertiser on a custom created map
• Forward the Advertisement to a 3rd party through Email
• Email the person whose contact details are displayed

Real-Estate Module

• Perform search on the list of Real Estate postings in the database
• View details of a particular Estate
• A photo gallery to browse through images of an Estate
• View location of an Estate on Google map
• View location of an Estate on a custom created map
• Forward the Estate information to a 3rd party through Email
• Email the Estate owner or broker

Job Directory Module

• Perform search on the list of Job Openings in the database
• View details of a particular Job Opening
• A photo gallery to browse through images of an Employer
• View location of an Employer on Google map
• View location of an Employer on a custom created map
• Forward the Job Opening to a 3rd party through Email
• Apply to a particular Job Opening

The main advantage of these Super Directory modules is their reliability, customization, and affordability.

Challenges

iPhone and BlackBerry SDK are loaded with native controls but those controls didn't suit our client's GUI, since we required an identical layout and functionality on iPhone and BlackBerry Storm. Therefore, a number of controls were customized by Q3 Technologies for providing the desired look, feel and functionality of the application.

To develop one single application that can be morphed without any customization to work as a client application for different types of Content. Also the same application had to operate with different backend platforms, i.e. .NET, DotNetNuke, SharePoint, PHP, Joomla, Drupal.

The other challenges were:

• User Management
• License Management
• CMS Integration
  • Custom development may be restricted by framework limitations – so any future requirements should be within the framework of the CMS
• Handling importing/Exporting data though CMS
• Creation of custom account page
  

Solutions

The GUI, display content and layout was made dynamic; so that same application can be used to display any type of content. Web services were used for creating a platform independent architecture which removed the requirement for creating separate protocol for communicating with all backend platforms, i.e. .NET, DotNetNuke, SharePoint, PHP, Joomla, Drupal.

iPhone
iPhone Application was developed on Mac OS using XCode with 3.0 version of SDK. gSoap was used for creating Client and Stubs from WSDL for the Web service. These methods of stubs were used from Objective C code from Mac OS. In order to meet with the client's requirement, a number of controls were customized for the GUI and its native look was modified to match up with the required design for fetching the layout information from Web service and displaying it dynamically.

BlackBerry
A number of customized controls were developed for the BlackBerry Application. Net RIM API 4.7 was used for the BlackBerry application. Stubs were created with help of java wireless kit for the Webservice. In order to meet with the client's requirement, a number of controls were customized for the GUI and its native look was modified to keep it consistent with the layout for iPhone application.

Technologies

• LAMP - Linux CentOS v5
• Drupal 6.0
• Apache v2.2
• PHP v5.1.6
• MySQL v5.0
• phpMyAdmin Database Management Tool
• XAMPPo
• iPhone
  • iPhone SDK 3.0
  • Objective C
  • gSoap
• BlackBerry
  • Net RIM API 4.7
  • Java Wireless Tookit 2.5.2
    

Benefits

• Increased Affordability
• Increased Reliability
• Reduced Maintenance
• Earned huge profits
• Complete E-commerce solution available for customers