Software & Integration

We create and integrate software - delivering web, mobile, desktop and cloud solutions and integrating new and existing systems using best-of-breed technology.

Every business is unique. Often there is no pre-packaged solution that quite meets your needs or delivers the competitive advantage you seek.

In these cases the best option is to commission us to develop software that does exactly what you want, the way you want it.

Theta specialises in building custom solutions in a range of technologies to suit your needs and budget. Our specialist skills include Microsoft .NET and Java development. We also work with the Oracle suite and with SQL Server.

We are focussed on delivering the right solution for you. This means we are just as comfortable working with the latest commercial products from Microsoft as we are with best-of-breed Open Source toolsets.

We can work with you through all phases of software development lifecycle - from requirements gathering through development and testing right up to training and ongoing support.

You can even, as other customers do, choose to outsource your entire internal software development capability to Theta.

Learn more about our development services and methodology, or get in touch to discuss your requirements:

Integration

Integration between systems can be required for a whole range of reasons including:
  • Creating unified views of data to get one source of the truth
  • Coordinating internal systems into overarching business processes, and
  • Transacting with business partners online
Delivering the best integration solutions involves gluing systems together using the right tools so that they share the right data and messages at the right time. Theta can help you select the best glue for your needs - whether it is data or messaging integration you require - and then design and build the end-to-end solution. Our approach to integration is to do it right and doing it light. We are certified specialists in Microsoft BizTalk Server. And we work with leading open source technologies too. See below for more on the integration tools we use:

Microsoft BizTalk Server

Theta are certified specialists in Microsoft BizTalk Server. BizTalk Server is Microsoft’s integration and connectivity server solution. It connects systems inside and across organisations to exchange data and orchestrate processes requiring multiple systems. In addition to integration functionality, BizTalk also provides messaging, a rules engine, EDI connectivity, Business Activity Monitoring (BAM), RFID capabilities and IBM Host/Mainframe connectivity. Talk to us today about how Theta can help design and develop BizTalk integration solutions for your company. And if you're looking for BizTalk support and maintenance you may be interested in our 24x7 BizTalk support service.

Microsoft .NET

Theta designs and develops custom Microsoft .NET applications in C# and VB.NET.

We have a specialist Microsoft technologies team that have been delivering Microsoft solutions since the days of Visual Basic. In fact we still support VB applications that we created 10 years ago - because they are still delivering for the customer.

More recently we have built a broad range of sophisticated applications - both Windows Forms applications as well as ASP.NET web applications. These include ongoing development of complex risk management software for the utilities sector, healthcare procurement software, and B2B integration using Web Services.

Java

Theta develops custom Java solutions using a range of predominately Open Source Java tools and frameworks. We have a dedicated Java development team that has delivered a wide range of projects over several years. We create both web and 'thick-client' Swing applications as well as Web Service-based integration solutions. We use tools such as Tomcat, JBoss, and frameworks such as Java Server Faces (JSF), Java Server Pages (JSP), Struts, Spring and Hibernate. We also use higher-level frameworks such as LifeRay portal. Some of the applications we have delivered include complex, graphically and computationally intensive energy trading tools, B2C pre-pay solutions, B2B web applications and web services for utilties metering and job management, weighbridge applications and reporting portlets.

Liferay

LifeRay Portal is the world's leading enterprise open source portal framework, offering integrated Web publishing and content management, an enterprise service bus and service-oriented architecture, and compatibility with all major IT infrastructures.

Oracle PL/SQL

Since Theta began as a software services consultancy in 1995 Oracle has always been one of the product sets we use. We have created a huge number of solutions that range from those that use the Oracle database purely for data storage, for example Microsoft and Java based multi-tier web applications, to those that also use the Oracle development tools. Oracle PL/SQL is one example, and is the preferred programming language for developing complex and high performance logic within Oracle databases. PL/SQL also forms the underlying technology used by other Oracle products such as Oracle Warehouse Builder used in our Business Intelligence practice. Theta has a number of dedicated and extremely experienced PL/SQL developers. Some Oracle database projects we have worked on include insurance claims systems, real time energy trading systems, large, near realtime data warehouses.

Cloud Development

Imagine being able to use the cloud to run your own custom business application. If done properly you could:
  • Quickly launch your application without upfront investment in infrastructure, and
  • Set up the development and test environments in a snap, while
  • Making savings from reduced licensing, hardware and maintenance costs, and at the same time being able to
  • Scale capacity quickly and cheaply in an elastic fashion,
  • Get high availability for little outlay, and
  • Only pay for what you use
Theta can help you navigate the cloud offerings out there and harness its full power to achieve these things. We can help you figure out what the best approach is to cloud development, what strategy you should use and how to deal with the uncertainties of this new paradigm - such as subscription pricing and security. Theta has embraced cloud platforms and we are currently developing project estimation tool on the Microsoft Azure platform (contact us if you'd like a peak at the beta http://thetaconz.cloudapp.net/) Contact us about using our cloud development experience to assist you to build or migrate applications to Azure or other cloud platforms.

Drupal

Drupal is an open source web content management system.  Theta has several years of experience implementing complex Drupal sites - both public facing and internal Intranets. In fact the site you're viewing right now is built using Drupal.

Drupal is a highly productive framework with a huge collection of extension modules.  Using Drupal, Theta can build complex, data driven sites very quickly.  These sites are fully content managed so daily maintenance can easily be done by customers with a minimum of training.

For example, this theta.co.nz site includes features such as news items, job listings, application forms, customer satisfaction survey's and newsletters as well as cross tagging features that allow us to automatically display content in the right side bar that is related to what you are viewing at the time.

Drupal is used by some of the largest companies in the world and by high profile New Zealand sites too. Some example sites include:

New Zealand sites:

International sites:

Contact us about developing or supporting your Drupal site.

PowerBuilder

Theta is one of the few software development companies in Auckland that still offers Sybase PowerBuilder design and development services. We have well over a decade of experience delivering mission critical PowerBuilder applications and we continue to maintain and enhance highly reliable and productive systems for our customers. Although PowerBuilder is not so fashionable these days it is still a highly functional and productive environment. However, customers seeking to migrate from PowerBuilder to .NET or Java will find Theta a particlarly good fit, as we have experts in all of these technologies under one roof.

Our Methodology - Pragmatic Agile

Theta's software development methodology is called Pragmatic Agile. Pragmatic Agile is a proven, common sense, method that utilises practical techniques from Agile Software Development and applies them within an overall waterfall model.

Under Pragmatic Agile, waterfall stages such as initiation, business requirements definition, high-level design, build and test are followed as broadly sequential steps. Within the delivery phases, however, Agile approaches are used. This includes an Agile design philosophy supported by a delivery approach that uses iterations (called sprints), and management techniques such as scrum meetings and large visible wall charts, all with a strong focus on people.

Theta is focussed on you, the client. While Pragmatic Agile is our preferred way of working, we're happy to work the way you are most comfortable and will adapt our methods to suit your style. We find we can often use parts of our methodology within the framework of a client's own methodology.

 

Why Pragmatic Agile?

Waterfall methods are common, easy to understand and easy to plan to. Their sequential steps suit the way businesses typically fund projects and the predictive and repeatable nature of the methods are comforting.

The pitfalls of waterfall projects, however, are well known. If good requirements gathering and change management processes are absent, projects can fail to deliver what the business really wants.  Projects also frequently overrun due to the risky 'big-bang' style of delivery. The software delivered under this method can also be over-engineered and costly to maintain.

Agile methods advocate iterative delivery of prioritised requirements with a strong focus on people and collaboration. These methods are better able to handle changing requirements and use lightweight designs. When run well, Agile projects can deliver a solution that is both what the business wants and is cheaper to maintain in the long run. For many organisations, however, using purely Agile methods requires a significant change of culture and expectations. Buy-in across the business - often difficult to achieve - is needed.

The intention of Pragmatic Agile is to offer the best of both of these worlds. Contact us to discuss using Pragmatic Agile on your project.

IT Strategy Alliance & IT Governance

We usually begin our engagements with a thorough current-state assessment. After consulting with various business units regarding key drivers, we apply proprietary methods to develop IT strategy and define and plan the future-state. We adapt our methodologies to our clients' needs by extracting various strategy related tasks from frameworks and standards as defined by COBIT®, ITIL®, and TOGAF®.