Services
Everything from the oldest code in your building to the newest.
We're a small firm of senior engineers. The person who scopes your project is the person who builds it. If we can't do something well, we'll say so and point you at someone who can.
01 · Custom software & new product development
Software shaped around your business, not the other way round.
Some clients arrive with an idea and nothing built yet. Others arrive after discovering that the off-the-shelf product covers eighty percent of what they do, and that the missing twenty percent is the part that makes them money.
Either way we build desktop, web and mobile applications with real database work behind them: the kind of line-of-business software that runs quietly for fifteen years, which we know because we have several of those still running.
- First versions. A working slice of a new product on real data, usually in weeks, so you can put it in front of users while the idea can still change.
- Web applications. Database-backed, fast, accessible, and built to be maintained by someone other than us.
- Mobile applications. iOS and Android, covered in full below.
- Desktop applications. Windows line-of-business tools in .NET and in Delphi, including alongside systems you already own.
- Workflow automation. Removing the spreadsheet-and-email steps that quietly cost you a headcount.
- Integrations. Making systems that were never designed to talk to each other do exactly that, reliably.
- Defect mitigation. Brought in on a project that's gone wrong, to find out why and get it shipping again.
- Native iOS and Android. Swift and Kotlin when the app depends on platform features, performance or a genuinely native feel.
- Cross-platform where it fits. One codebase for both stores when the app is largely forms, data and workflow, which is most business software.
- Offline first. Field crews, warehouses, basements and rural routes. The app keeps working with no signal and reconciles cleanly when it comes back.
- Device capabilities. Camera and barcode scanning, GPS and geofencing, push notifications, biometrics, Bluetooth peripherals and printers.
- Back-end and API work. We build the services the app talks to, including over systems that predate mobile phones entirely.
- Store submission and upkeep. App Store and Google Play, signing, phased release, crash reporting, and the OS updates that arrive every autumn whether you planned for them or not.
02 · Mobile apps for iOS & Android
Apps built for work rather than for a demo.
iPhone, iPad and Android. Public apps published to the stores, and internal apps distributed privately to your own staff.
We'll also tell you when you don't need one. A responsive web application installs nowhere, updates instantly and costs less to maintain. When a phone genuinely is the right device, because of the camera, the location, the notifications or the fact that the job happens standing up, that's when an app earns its keep.
03 · Legacy modernization
The specialism we're known for.
Delphi 5 and 7, Classic ASP, ColdFusion, Visual Basic 6, Access and FoxPro: maintained, extended, ported, or replaced one module at a time. We've been supporting these platforms continuously since they were current.
Engagements start with a fixed-price code audit, and the written assessment is yours to keep whatever you decide to do next.
- Delphi 5 / 7 VCL · BDE · InterBase
- Classic ASP VBScript · ADO · COM+
- ColdFusion CFML · Lucee
- Visual Basic 6
- MS Access / VBA
- Visual FoxPro
- PowerBuilder
- ASP.NET WebForms
- Crystal Reports
- Perl / CGI
- AI-accelerated delivery. Codebase archaeology, assisted porting and test generation, with an engineer reviewing every commit.
- Document extraction. Structured data out of invoices, forms and scanned records.
- Semantic search. Retrieval over your own documents and records, with citations users can verify.
- Classification & routing. Triage and tagging with confidence thresholds you set.
- In-app assistants. Scoped to each user's permissions, not bolted on over the top of them.
- Straight advice. Including when a model isn't the right tool for the problem.
04 · AI integration & enablement
AI used carefully, in our process and in your product.
We've rebuilt how we deliver software around what AI is genuinely good at, and we're equally clear about where it isn't.
Our rule is short: we don't ship code no engineer has read. Everything else follows from that.
05 · Database & analytics
The data usually outlives the application that created it.
Which is why we treat it as the more important half of most engagements. We've moved data between more eras of technology than we'd care to count.
- Schema design and refactoring for systems that have to keep running while you change them.
- Query and index tuning. The reason a nightly job takes six hours is usually findable in an afternoon.
- Migration between platforms. Paradox, Jet, DBF, InterBase, older SQL Server to current SQL Server, PostgreSQL or cloud databases.
- Reporting and dashboards people actually open, including replacing Crystal Reports estates.
- Data quality and reconciliation. Finding out why two systems disagree, and which one is right.
- Backup, recovery and retention that has been tested by restoring, not just configured.
- Database-backed web applications. The useful kind, not brochureware.
- E-commerce. Storefronts, payment and fulfilment integrations, and rescuing implementations that have gone wrong.
- Customer and partner portals that expose your existing systems safely to the outside world.
- APIs. REST services over legacy back ends, so modern tools can reach data that's currently trapped.
- Performance and accessibility. Fast loads, keyboard support, and markup that assistive technology can navigate.
- Marketing sites when you need one, built to be edited without calling us.
06 · Web & e-commerce applications
Sites that load quickly, navigate obviously, and do real work.
Our web focus has always been on applications rather than pages: interactive systems with proper database integration behind them.
Fast, clear and functional has been the brief since 1997. The technology underneath it has changed completely; the brief hasn't.
07 · Hosting, cloud & managed services
Including the platforms nobody else will host.
Keeping Internet-facing systems up and running, with the unusual advantage that we're comfortable operating the older stacks most providers won't accept.
If your application needs an environment that current hosting companies have quietly stopped supporting, that's a conversation worth having with us.
- Managed hosting. Shared and dedicated, with someone who knows your application, not just the server it sits on.
- Cloud migration and cloud hosting, sized to what you actually need rather than what's fashionable.
- Legacy-friendly environments for Classic ASP, older IIS and applications with awkward dependencies.
- Monitored, tested backups. Verified by restoring them, on a schedule.
- Colocation for hardware you'd rather keep owning.
- Monitoring and patching so problems reach us before they reach your customers.
08 · IT consulting
Requirements analysis, technology selection, architecture review, network assessment and planning, data protection strategy, and second opinions on proposals you've been given by someone else.
We do a fair amount of the last one. If a quote in front of you seems large, an hour with us is a cheap way to find out whether it's justified.
09 · Training & documentation
Customised training, written documentation and online help to support the launch of a software product, or to capture what's in one engineer's head before they retire.
Knowledge-transfer engagements are some of the most valuable work we do, and they're dramatically more effective while the original author is still available.
Not sure which of these you need?
That's a normal place to start. Describe the problem and we'll tell you what it actually is. We've been doing this since 1997 and we've seen most of them before.