At present the market offers a wide choice of many project management and task management software solutions: MS Project, LiquidPlanner, Zoho, Comindware tracker, SalesForce , JIRA, Basecamp, GanttProject, etc. Some of these solutions are ready to provide the most effective functionality you have ever imagined. All these systems are web based, and provide mobility to the company, which consequently increases its efficiency.

Another feature of modern project and task management software is the presence of Wiki technology, which a special system or web service for creating databases, technical tasks and preparation of various documents that are used by several users.

Wiki is not only the symbol of a giant online encyclopedia. At present the wiki style is a management technology, project environment and a way of developing unusual products. Wiki-mania is everywhere – in the IT industry, education, gaming and literature. Although this approach is most suitable for small project groups, its ideas of communication, joint development and energy exchange are becoming a great driver also for solving large scale tasks and projects.

Wiki-based applications can be an addition to the already used project management program or can possess enough possibilities to substitute it completely. Now we’d like to review some of the most common Wiki-based project management systems.

Trac Project
Trac Project is a project management system which alongside with the basic functionality of wiki applications possesses a SVN browser, a possibility of tracking tickets, build statuses, timelines, road maps (shows milestones as well as executed and current tickets), etc.

The specific feature of Trac is a great number of plug-ins, for example, plug-ins for web administration, authentication, for managing the documentation code, tickets, testing, users and version control. At that Trac Project is absolutely free and is delivered by the modified BSD license.

Pbwiki
PBWiki is one of the simplest in use wiki applications. With its help you can use files together with other users, differentiate the access to individual files and folders, add users, track changes in file versions and so on.
The program installation takes about one minute and, thanks to the intuitive interface, understanding the principles of its working will take very little time. Creating folders and pages as well as their editing is carried out in a very simple way. One can add a comment to each page and with one click get its version for printing.

The set of templates for standard pages further simplifies the usage of this program. Moreover, various themes for Pbwiki design are also provided. Free maintenance plan presupposes using the program by three users. By the way, the paid alternatives are inexpensive – 4-8 dollars per month.

I hope you have got the general idea about Wiki technology. The choice of task management software for your company depends completely on you and your needs. In our current practice we use Comindware task management and JIRA as they two cover most of project needs (even while they don’t haveWiki option).

In Berlin on March 1, 2012 were announced the winners of the European Software Excellence Awards 2012, the contest of the European software development companies.
36 independent software vendors from 14 countries took part in the contest. The winners and finalists were selected by the independent jury. The applicants provided the information on solutions for their clients. The applicants had to describe in details the performed project including such moments as clients’ targets, the offered solution, the process of realization as well as its advantages obtained by the client in the end. Every project had to be supported by the feedback from the client.

The Belarusian Company IBA presented two projects in two categories - Information Management (Database Solution) and Vertical Market (Enterprise Solution). The project performed for IBM on database management became the winner.

The winners of the contest this year also began Oracle, Fujitsu and other famous companies.

While welcoming winners and finalists, Alan Norman, the executive director of IT Europa, said: “The general number of participants was very high. Software developers have showed excellent skills in the sphere of IT.”

Within the framework of the festival Mobilefest, the special contest of mobile applications EuraMedia Mobilefest App Contest will be organized by MDDay Project (Russia) in cooperation with Idea Media (USA).

Only mobile applications developed not later than 2011 can participate in the contest. Mobile apps developers can apply for several nominations: “Best Game”, “Best Social Service”, “Best Business Application”. The jury will consist of the representatives of venture funds and experts in the sphere of mobile services and will select ten best projects.

The winner of the EuraMedia Mobilefest App Contest will get a trip to the EuraMedia Summit in Boston on May 25-27, 2012 and will get an opportunity to present its application in front of investors and international venture funds. Moreover, the winner will make an intensive one-month course in entrepreneurship.

The requests for participation are accepted till March 10 at http://2012.mobilefest.ru/konkurs-mobilnyih-predlozheniy/

The finals of the mobile apps contest will be held at the Mobilefest 2012 which will take place this year on March 22-23 at the ski park Yakhroma. This annual festival gathers about 300 software developers for iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian, Android  and specialists in the sphere of mobile Internet.

The concept of the festival presupposes the combination of the business section and the conference for software developers, individual master classes, active winter sports and evening entertaining events and parties.

As stated in the report of the biggest independent analytical company Ovum, based in London, by the year 2014 mobile phone application development companies will have preferred the Android operating system and will have outcompeted iOS. At this, Apple will still be “trend setter”, with Google being the leader in terms of hardware. According to the analysts from Ovum, BlackBerry and Windows Phone are likely to fill smaller niches in the market, although no figures are provided to prove this theory.

The number of mobile apps in the Android Market has exceeded 400,000 (the App Store has about 500,000). Although Android application development faces numerous obstacles, the platform is developing very quickly mainly thanks to its openness. But though the market share of Android at the mobile device market is quite big, Android applications makes only 1/6 of the whole profit from iOS apps and have more problems with piracy.

Time will show what will change in future. And now we can operate only with figures.

The interactive nature of modern web applications presupposes more than simple buttons and boxes. At present web application developers can create advanced exciting applications that allow porting favorite desktop applications to the Internet.  This new generation of applications is called Rich Internet Applications (RIAs).

In order to develop complicated RIA applications, software development companies use a wide range of advanced technologies and tools. The most popular and widely used of them are Adobe Flash technologies (particularly Adobe Flex).

As you may know, Adobe Flex is an open source framework mainly used by Flex developers for creating impressive RIA solutions. Moreover, Flex technology ensures flexible and rapid web application development.

More information about this technology and its main peculiarities can be found in the article about developing RIAs with Flex technology at Oxagile site.

Apple has published a special press release, which shows the last sales of its new gadget, iPad, the Tablet PC. According to these data, there were sold 1 million units 28 days after the start of sales. This is almost doubled number of sold iPhones.
Steve Jobs commented that 1,000,000 of iPads during 28 days are much less than 74 days, which were required to achieve the same rates with iPhones.
During that time users made more than 12 million downloads from the App Store and more than 1.5 million downloads of electronic books from iBookstore. Those figures showed triumph of iPad application developers. And it’s not surprising. See the statistics showing quantity of apps at the beginning of iPad sales: there were more than 5 thousand iPad applications plus another 200 thousand applications for iPhone / iPod touch that also can be installed on iPad.

iPad was originaly available only for the domestic U.S. market. Apple managers planned to sell this gadget in Europe in late April, but the deadline was pushed back because of the large demand in the United States. Therefore, customers from other countries were allowed to make orders only in May, 10.

Financial crisis influenced almost every industry. In some economic spheres salaries went down dramatically, in the others the level of bankruptcy exceeded all possible margins. Software industry also faced some changes.

1. Client companies started to think more about the cost of software development than about the 100% customization according to their needs. Top managers understand that it’s better to install an open source system, pay a bit for customization and train the personnel how to change processes to work with the given system. It’s all about money…

2. E-commerce business is developing. Maybe it is developing not so fast as it was before crisis but it’s still growing. The main reason for this is hidden in the collapse of financial market. People don’t believe in stocks and bonds and other financial instruments anymore. They want to invest in goods (and maybe services) that they can see. The other reason that helps eCommerce business to get more and more market share is lower operational costs. For example you can buy Gucci clothing, Cavalli dress or other designer clothing much cheaper online than in a retail boutique. And people understand this and save money buying online. So, companies working with eCommerce systems get additional customers nowadays.

3. IT Outsourcing is getting its positions back. As everybody has less money to invest to development rate becomes a key factor. So, software development services companies have to think twice and decrease their costs as much as possible.

4. Education and certification in IT industry becomes more demanded. In the situation of increased competition withing the IT market professionalism becomes more important.

This is not the complete list of after-crisis IT trends. Please comment with you ideas and comments.

More and more new frameworks and platforms for software developing are emerging from day to day, Symfony being one of the fastest growing. Its popularity arises from many useful options and possibilities offered by Symfony such as:

-         hosting and scaling applications with no problems;
-         building complex web apps much faster;
-         easy maintaining;
-         using best practices;
-         integrating third-party libraries.

Most software developers make use of Symfony for rapid website development and the Symfony community has increased considerably for the last 6 months.

On February 16-17 Sensio Labs organizes the second Symfony live conference in Paris where developers will have an opportunity to get acquainted with the Symfony community, speak to the core team and share their practical knowledge and skills.

Apart from the conference, a one-day training on Symfony will be organized.

All in the world flows and changes. Is not also an exception and the Internet is the enormous information river, one of the most live and dynamical organisms in the information world. And till now, rummaging every possible search “networks” in depths of the Network World, we tried to “catch” in its depths the information fresh and actual – for the given concrete moment. Applying for a role of the World storehouse of the information, it is compelled to compete not only to the short-lived press, but also with more solid, fundamental storehouses of knowledge. For example, encyclopedias.

Till an epoch of the Internet they were the main sources of knowledge, the main our advisers and assistants. Whether interested us the biography of the well-known writer, interpretation of terms – we found answers to all these questions on book pages.

Moreover, appear, that there are no in the world of two more excellent from each other phenomena, than the Internet and traditional encyclopedias. The information in the Network is distributed non-uniformly – feast today and fast tomorrow – and the accurate structure in it is absent. An another matter – encyclopedias, solid, authoritative editions on which and to refer pertinently in any situation. In them and article everyone is brought to perfection, checked repeatedly up and to use to it conveniently … Here only volume afflicts – try to squeeze on a shelf to small apartment at least «the Big Soviet Encyclopedia»! And the price bites … At last, any book encyclopedia inevitably becomes outdated in some years after an exit – and it besides that the emphasis here becomes not on fashionable sensations-something ephemeral, and on the phenomenon of historical scale …

In a word, at everyone the lacks – but also … And, alas, we too seldom recollect the advantages it, completely rejecting one source of the information for the sake of another. Ask any modern schoolboy – and whether for a long time you looked at least in «the Big encyclopaedic dictionary»? In the answer – sincere bewilderment: «And what for? Everything that is necessary to me, I and will find in the Network …» Perhaps it and so.

It is possible, of course, long and занудно to philosophise, discussing so fashionable now a theme of opposition of book and electronic forms of representation of the information. But after all actually no opposition here is present! For a long time already many traditional encyclopedias have found a new life, having embodied in the electronic form on Internet open spaces.
Everything has begun, certainly, with the well-known “Britaniki” which have opened «network representation» in the end of the last century. First, the truth, publishing house of the well-known encyclopedia perceived electronic “Britaniku” exclusively as a toy, an advertising gimmick, called to advance sale of “Britaniki” paper. However it is literally in a year, having convinced of unknown interest of the public to «a virtual clone» legendary edition, its owners have run into other extreme measure – access to a site “Britanika” became paid …

Well, encyclopedias have got accustomed on the Internet, having won for itself own «an ecological niche». And in increasing frequency in search of compactly presented and a trustworthy information users address to them. The Twist of fate: the maximum of advantage from Internet encyclopaedias takes young generation – students, schoolboys. Those that so like to argue about «old age» books in general and encyclopedias – in particular …

The new post “Software for hair loss treatment: high-tech way to save beauty and dignity” in Oxagile Blog awoke my interest. It’s devoted to special computer applications that help people fighting against hair loss (alopecia).

The author also published distressing statistics for this disease. It turned out, that a lot of men and women face this
problem by age 50 years (and some of them even by age 30 years).  I’m waiting impatiently the continuation of the topic, programmers from Oxagile are planning to write about software for people who inherited alopecia.