Services

History

Step Ahead Software was formed in 1994 with the mission of harnessing the power of object oriented technology. At that time many people saw this technology as just another radical but passing fad. The company’s president and founder, Chris Colman, had been working with object oriented technology since the late 80’s and firmly believed that once all the "hype" died down a new, solid, quality enhancing and, best of all, highly productive method of developing software would remain. This technology could then be applied, to great advantage, in many fields of software development including the internet.

Products

Step Ahead Software produces a line of leading edge visually oriented tools for areas such as web animation development (AnFX) and software development. Our goal is to make AnFX a standard piece of equipment in every Web Masters tool kit.

Step Ahead Software also provides internet, eCommerce, web site and general software development services to a wide range of clients from small companies all the way up to clients such as Lucent Technologies. Our skilled engineers have experience in advanced data modeling and user interface design. Our skilled software engineers produce quality end results that are robust and extendible and our qualified graphic artist ensures that they look good also.

The Team

Step Ahead Software has a cohesive, skilled development team. The atmosphere in the development team is one of excitement because they really like what they do. The technologies are fun to work with and in this environment new ideas flow freely. We're always coming up with new ideas to make our products even better. We actively encourage feedback from our users to make sure that we're developing the sort of features that users need and want.

Direction

That early belief, by Chris Colman, in object oriented technology, has proven to be a very rewarding one and enables Step Ahead Software to provide competitive advantage to its clients through extremely well architectured software that is both robust and expandable.

To make the process of developing quality software even more productive the company has developed tools that enable the rapid prototyping and implementation of object oriented models in both C++ and Java. These visual object oriented modeling tools are now sold around the world. In 1997 our Java based product, Javelin, won the Java Developer's Journal "World Class Award".

Expertise

Step Ahead Software employs a team of dedicated people focussed on providing quality solutions. Our team has proven competence in many important aspects of modern software development and web site design as outlined below:

Languages

Excellent C++, Java and HTML skills. Chris Colman has personally mentored team members in these languages to ensure that we provide a consistent and predictable deliverable to our clients. This mentoring spans big picture things like design strategies all the way down to small picture things like the naming of variables and functions. Our extensive knowledge of the language is demonstrated not only by the successful products that we have developed using these languages but also by the fact that we have written parsers for both languages for use in our own object oriented modeling tools.

Methodology

Excellent Object Oriented Analysis, Design, Implementation and Testing skills. We employ the refined and productive methodologies that the modern software engineering has to offer and continually review new enhancements as they arrive to judge their suitability for future projects.

Development Environments

We are proficient in the use of the following development environments Microsoft Visual C++, Borland C++, Borland C++ Builder, MS Access + various object modeling tools including Visual Classworks, Javelin and Rational Rose.

Platforms

Step Ahead Software has developed products deployed on the following platforms: Windows NT, Windows 95/98 and Windows 3.x. We also have much success in maintaining a single set of source code for products that must be deployed in both 16 and 32 bit Windows environments.

Development of software for embedded controllers (68K, Intel 960, 68HC11, Z80) is another area of expertise the company has acquired.

Web Development

Step Ahead Software has created and maintains a number of web sites for various types of clients. Our advanced automatic HTML generators reduce maintenance costs and reduce the chance of human error.

Type of Applications Developed

• Control and management software via graphical representation of such systems. These applications provide users with a very realistic representation of the system that they are managing. Protocols used for communicating between the application and the system have included raw TCP/IP, SNMP and some proprietry protocols.
• Financial applications.
• Bar coding, Identification (ID) card printing etc.
• Event management software.
• Management of Audio and Visual resources.

Clients

Our clients include major telecommunications equipment manufacturers, telecommunications service providers, IT service providers, Australian electronic manufacturers and an large insurance company.

Pricing

Clients are offered fixed price or time and materials terms. For fixed price terms we can assist in the development of a product specification document if required. We can negotiate rates at any time convenient to the client.

Where to from here?

If you feel that your company would benefit from dealing with a software company dedicated to quality and customer satisfaction then please contact one of our representatives to discuss your next development project.

For more information mail us at info@stepaheadsoftware.com

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