Published Date:
12/04/2003

Ultradata & Microsoft .Net - Giving Our Clients a Competitive Advantage

Microsoft and Ultradata

Although it is true that the quality of a financial services organisation’s customer service is often a competitive differentiator and critical to success, we cannot ignore the role that technology plays in the equation.

For that reason we have chosen to develop People & Relationships in Microsoft .NET.

"Microsoft .NET framework enables a new generation of enterprise applications for the commercial sector.

Ultradata's leadership position in the financial services industry can only be strengthened as a result of their adoption of .NET.

Microsoft is working very closely with Ultradata to ensure full business benefit of this technology for both Ultradata and our clients."

Mr Peter Moore, Director of Platform Strategy and Developer Group - Microsoft Australia

What Is Microsoft .NET

Microsoft .NET is software that connects information, people, systems and devices. NET connects a broad range of personal and business technologies, enabling you to access and use important information, whenever and wherever it is needed.

Built on XML Web service standards, .NET enables both new and existing applications to connect with software and services across platforms, applications and programming languages.

Why Microsoft .NET

Business integration provides the opportunity to save valuable time and resources.

Integration, though, has often been difficult. Frequently the cost and time associated with integrating business systems has outweighed the benefits. In addition to the actual cost, it also drains valuable personnel resources to develop, maintain, and upgrade the system. Once it is complete, businesses are often locked together with partners, hoping that priorities and business conditions don’t change.

In order for integration to be successful, business must be able to quickly and flexibly choose the best partners, systems, and applications without being limited by system compatibility issues. As technology and business conditions continue to change, they must have the ability to develop agile, dynamic business systems that not only integrate economically by leverage existing investments in technology and personnel.

By using the internet to enable software applications to more easily work together, Microsoft .NET promises easier integration within and among businesses, while creating opportunities to connect more meaningfully with customers. Through best of breed integration, Microsoft .NET has the ability to turn existing IT infrastructures into a competitive advantage.

Web Sites & Web Services

Business on the Internet today revolves around web sites. Web sites generally do a good job presenting static information to a user. When tied to existing systems they can also perform simple transactions and accomplish limited commerce as well. For businesses to truly harness the power of the Internet, web sites must evolve. They must learn to interact with one another as well as with existing systems and applications.

XML web services represent the evolution of the Web site.

Integration

Taking the modular aspects of modern software applications and allowing them to communicate through standard Internet protocols (XML and SOAP), XML Web services offer a direct means by which business processes can interact. Applications hosted internally, as well as on remote systems, can be stitched together, allowing businesses to program the Web – quickly and economically creating specialised solutions that meet unique business needs.

Integrating Within

XML Services offer incredible value to organisations. They present the opportunity to bridge applications and information written in different programming languages and residing on differing platforms. In this manner applications from different departments can expose information as XML, sharing information in order to create a new benefits application.

Integrating With Partners

Not only can organisations more easily integrate internal applications, they can also access services exposed by other businesses. By combining XML services exposed on the Internet, companies can program the Web to create a wide variety of value-added applications.

Reaching Out

Creating XML Web services and exposing them on the Internet also provides another key advantage; it greatly expands the number of customers and business partners that can come in contact with a business’s services. Besides creating valuable links with partners it creates the potential for advertising services to other businesses or customers that may not have been aware of the company or service.

Integrating With Customers

By enabling different software programs to interact, .NET creates new and exciting possibilities. A user will be able to establish an identity and move seamlessly from one .NET experience to another. They will have more power and control over their information as they enable applications to interact on their behalf.

Rapid Development

The tools of the .NET platform, empower developers to quickly and easily create cutting edge XML Web services and applications building on their existing skill sets. Through multi-language support, developers are freed to use the appropriate language in building XML Web services. Seamless deployment, as well as the ability to use existing XML Web services presents substantial savings opportunities for the corporate IT department.

In addition to their technical capabilities, these developer technologies help alleviate the greatest scarcity in the world; skilled programmers. Applying rapid application development techniques to Web applications and services increases developer productivity, saving both time and money. Finally, by supporting any programming language, these tools tap the broadest developer talent pool (only about 10% of the world’s developers know Java), take advantage of existing skills and let people use the tool most appropriate for a specific task.

Empowering Employees

The interconnectedness available on the .NET platform among software applications, devices, and people creates a remarkable opportunity for empowering employees. XML Web services allow for applications written once to be run on a wide variety of devices.

.NET offers the promise of allowing employees to act on the appropriate information where and when they need it. It facilitates better decisions by giving people in the field, at the office, and anywhere in between the information they need in a suitable and useful form.

Conclusion

By combining the benefits of tight integration with the flexibility of being able to quickly and easily adjust to changing conditions, Microsoft .NET creates the opportunity for businesses to choose the best systems, partners and applications.

The world is in a constant state of change. Businesses that wish to be successful in the long term must adapt on an ongoing basis. Microsoft .NET – Microsoft’s XML platform for Web services – is designed to let businesses adapt quickly and gracefully, so that they can not only be responsive to change but use that responsiveness as a competitive advantage.