Aside from giving customers complete visibility of their interactions with the company, customer portals make purchasing and making payments available 24/7 to customers, and businesses have more ways to generate revenue. Portals can be used to save time on responses, solve user problems, and communicate with organizations while providing custom content and streamlined customer service. Customer analytics are also easy to gather and use based on secure information provided through portals. Given the above-mentioned benefits, it's easy to see why portal solutions can be cost-effective in the long run.

In terms of business value, intranets encourage productivity and communication within an organization. Intranets, as a centralized corporate information system, help improve the productivity of employees, provide relevant content to users, and give support for remote or mobile workers while adapting to the organization's needs. Modern intranets help organizations foster communication, so teams can hold open discussions, individuals can exchange knowledge, management can stay in touch, and departments can provide updates.

The key benefit of using extranets is that organizations can communicate and transact in a more controlled and secure environment which prioritizes privacy while providing the flexibility for the users to access business information 24 hours a day. It also reduces errors since order histories are recorded so that they can verify payment and balances, and also process orders from suppliers and distributors simultaneously.

Extranets facilitate communication with clients and vendors, while intranets allow employees and colleagues to collaborate in a virtual space - most of the time without the involvement of external parties. Recently, extranets have become interchangeable with portal solutions that can be integrated with third-party systems that allow for interaction with external stakeholders. All of these solutions are different from the Internet, which has the capacity to grant all users access to all resources available.

Yes. UI is used rather than JavaScript codes for most of the functions of mobile apps, thus making them faster than websites. In addition, apps store their data locally on mobile devices, unlike websites that rely on servers. By storing user choices, this data retrieval system helps users save time. Performing tasks also gets easier with the help of a gesture, unlike websites.

Creating a mobile app has different stages that take different amounts of time to complete. App development can typically take three to nine months, depending on the complexity of the app and the structure of the project. A feature, such as messaging or chatting, and photo or video editing can take a longer time to develop than one that simply has a like or comment functionality. In addition, it will take extra time to develop native apps for both Android and Apple Devices and earn approvals through both stores.

The price varies and depends on the complexity of the app. Simple ones cost around $40,000 to $60,000, more complex projects average at around $60,000 to $150,000, and the most advanced app development can cost from $300,000 or more. Base labor cost can be estimated at around $50 an hour according to Salary.com.

Mobile apps provide many benefits but here are a few. It can help users become more modern and even open up new career opportunities. For small businesses, mobile apps can help from building a stronger brand, to easily and immediately connecting to customers. With the education app, students will be able to easily find information or documents for service-learning.

Native apps are fast, fit the features of the device, and can be tailored to the user's needs, but they require a lot of development. It utilizes software development tools (also known as SDKs) for specific software frameworks, hardware platforms, or operating systems. Hybrid apps, on the other hand, use specific web technologies (CSS and JavaScript), and almost any platform can be built from a single-code base.

One reason why a mobile application is important for business is that it helps them become visible to customers at all times. Aside from that, it provides general info, prices, promos, and much more. As a marketing tool for increasing brand presence, it most importantly cultivates customer loyalty.

The three main key trends in cloud software development, also known as cloud computing, are (1) the increasing demand for platform-as-a-service (PaaS), (2) vendors wanting to distribute internal computer processing and storage requirements across multiple cloud platforms and applications, and (3) the growing focus on data governance and security.

There are a wide range of services offered by cloud computing companies. But it can be narrowed down into three basic types: Infrsatructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS). IaaS, or infrastructure as a service, provides raw computing resources to its users such as processing power, data storage capacity, and network connectivity. While PaaS is perfect for companies that do not want to worry about maintaining hard drives and servers and can run their applications on the cloud service's platform as much as they want to. PaaS solutions are geared toward software development teams and provide computing and storage infrastructure as well as a development platform layer with web servers, database management systems, and software development kits (SDKs) for many programming languages. Lastly, SaaS providers provide application-level services that are tailored to a variety of business demands, such as customer relationship management (CRM), marketing automation, or business analytics.

When you harness the cloud technologies into your business's software development process, you are moving with ease, speed, and agility. You can continuously innovate and apply changes through the Cloud. Aside from that, the level of scalability is limitless. The Cloud offers endless pre-built services, inexpensive platforms, and a pipeline of new capabilities and ensures the quality and security of the applications.

The most pressing risks of cloud computing are privacy (controlled access and segmentation), availability leading to service disruption, and inevitable changes in service providers due to the volatile market and ROI as subscriptions may increase and end up being non-cost effective. Compliance in auditing, storage location, and transparency in communication has also become a concern when using the cloud as it can lead to a vulnerable position for the end customers.

The most common cloud computing challenges companies face is data security and privacy, cost management, multi-cloud environments, and the performance of the cloud-based solutions significantly affecting the end-users and profits of the company. Aside from those, changing to a different cloud-based solution may be a tedious procedure as it may require to be rewritten for the other cloud, so flexibility and interoperability will be a question in this part.

Simply put, customized software solutions are created to work with how the client works. Tailoring software to the specific needs of the client means that the user experience can also be customized, which can lead to increased productivity. Customized software can also be maintained to the client's specifications including security, scalability, and technical support. It's a worthy long-term investment for as long as the client is willing to use the software.

Important considerations for using custom software development include the technical needs of the client, the maintenance process for the software, the return on investment and the impact of software use on the client's staff. Here are some important questions to ask: What purpose does the software serve? Who will train users to use the software? How will it make life easier for the software's users? What methodology is involved to balance business and software development goals?

Code refactoring is the process of restructuring software code with the purpose of improving its internal structure and non-functional features. Code refactoring cleans up the software's code to make it more efficient and maintainable, which can also improve how the software is implemented. Aspects of software implementation affected by code refactoring includes performance, maintainability, security, interoperability, extensibility, and scalability.

Deciding to refactor and/or rewrite depends on how much change is required for the software solution to run properly. Refactoring software code means making manageable changes to the software without major overhauls that can slow down its progress. On the other hand, a complete rewrite of software code may change the foundations of the code altogether, which can then accommodate updated development technologies or application languages. The decision to make changes in software depends on factors such as the application, the team's capabilities, and the client's goals for the application and the cost of maintaining the current software versus the cost to rewrite.

Application development involves the design, construction, and implementation of software applications. The process of development also includes planning, analysis, testing, and support for the application being developed. Depending on the size of the enterprise, it can be done by a single developer or a dedicated team.

Data integration makes it possible to gather data from various sources and add them to the business database. This will help with analytics, decision-making capabilities, and business process overall. Data integration also helps with making the data fit real-time situations. In the long run, this will provide a long-lasting value to the business.

There are various challenges businesses face from application integration such as (1) complexity as they could enable new business processes or automate existing ones, (2) data tracking across cloud apps that are not connected to each other and are distributed across multiple cloud islands, and (3) incomplete or duplicate entry of information causing obstacles to integration.

Application integration is important because it can help businesses run more efficiently and effectively. By integrating applications, businesses can save time and money, improve employee productivity, provide accessibility to the information they need, and provide a better customer experience, which in turn increases customer satisfaction and loyalty.

There is a big difference between data integration and application integration. Data integration refers to combining data between two or more databases. This can be done for many purposes, including reducing duplicate data, providing better reporting and analysis capabilities, or simply making it easier for users to access all the data they need in one place. While application integration refers to the process of connecting different applications so that they can share data and functionality. This can be done for many purposes as well but is often done in order to automate processes or to allow different applications to work together more seamlessly.

Aside from poor design and planning, the issues and challenges with database design are achieving high processing speed to get the needed results, hard-to-follow design standards, and design conventions that are also hard to follow making requirements difficult to reach.

It depends. If your website is static, it does not need a database. But if your website is dynamic, you will probably need a database to store all the necessary data.

It is important to plan a database before creating it in order to make it efficient to fetch and save the data faster. Good relational databases work in tandem with each other to ensure that the correct data is consistently available.

The efficiency with which databases store information makes them suitable to handle volumes of information that would be unmanageable on a spreadsheet. Aside from a far greater storage capacity than spreadsheets, databases are also better for long-term archival storage especially for records subject to frequent changes.

This is important to make data queries fast and efficient because this will be apparent in large data queries and for a huge amount of users using the same database. An efficient database design will also lessen the load of the system. Based on experience, it may be easier to design the database first (based on requirements). Data may include pre-existing data related to or imported for the project, as well as data entered in the UI.

These are the advantages of security in software development:

- Enhanced software performance
- Risk reduction for businesses
- The cost of detecting and fixing software flaws are reduced
- Maintained compliance with security laws and regulations
- Reduced fines and penalties
- Increased trust and loyalty among customers
- Improved internal organizational security

The top software security challenges of the past few years are listed below.
- The Internet of Things and Ransomware
- Unmonitored and Deregulated AI
- Supply chain attack on software updates
- Cloud-based security
- DDOS attacks by botnets

Information security aims to prevent the loss of availability, integrity, and confidentiality of systems and data. In one or more of these areas, most security practices and controls aim to prevent these losses.

In spite of the fact that ALL businesses need to instill a sense of value around cyber security, there are six institutions that need it most. These include healthcare, small businesses, government agencies, manufacturing, financial institutions, education, and energy and utility companies.

Reasons why companies use CRM system include:
- Massive Customer Data
- Customer-based Products and Services Offerings
- Optimize Conversion Probability
- Customer Retention
- Easy Data Accessibility
- Improves Business Reputation
- Boost Social Media Presence
- Improves Efficiency of Employees
- Cost-Effective
- Utilization of Automation of Assigneed Tasks
- Increase Coordination Among Multiple Teams
- Increase Return of Investment
- Fast Sale Conversion

Recommended CRM Integrations are:
Email Integration - for communicating with customers and prospects — dispatching cold pitches, replying prospects’ questions, and more
Email Marketing Platform Integration - for fulfilling your email marketing strategy — making and sending bulk emails and email series to your subscribers
Calendar Integration - for setting up meetings with prospects and clients
Social Media Integration - for handling a brand’s social media accounts, and communicating with customers and potential customers via social networks
eCommerce Integration - for synchronizing data between an eCommerce platform and a CRM system for leveraging sales
Telephony Integration - for sales and customer service
Team Collaboration Integration - for being able to keep in touch and synchronize activities among team members, including remote workers
Accounting Integration - for enhanced finance management, tracking cash flow, and simpler payments
Chat Integration - for speaking with clients and leads about marketing, sales, and customer service issues

With CRM integrations, you can save time toggling between different applications as anything can be done in one interface. As all data is collected and kept in one place, seamless data transition is ensured which reduces the workload, eliminating human factors, and improving CRM marketing performance. All of this leads to a better user experience.

There are eight crucial steps to consider when building a CRM system from the bottom up.
Step 1: Define your CRM strategy vision and objectives
Step 2: Identify your target customer with buyer personas
Step 3: Outline your customer's journey
Step 4: Optimize the process of customer experience
Step 5: Invest in CRM software
Step 6: Marketing Automation
Step 7: CRM Training
Step 8: Setting Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) For Each Team
Step 9: Effective Reporting to ensure your data produces useful information

The best way to explain technical debt is to compare it to financial debt: it's the costly consequence of making a decision that prioritizes immediacy over quality. Like financial debt, technical debt can cost a client if the developers take design shortcuts in order to meet a deadline, only to result in a sub-optimal product that needs to be "fixed" with costly software updates after its launch. Simply put, it's the result of using quick fixes rather than full-scale solutions.

Technical debt is caused mainly by decisions that prioritize speed or release dates rather than optimized full-scale solutions. In software development, this may mean the use of coding shortcuts or design decisions that are less than optimal in order to meet the pending release date. These decisions lead to the immediate release of a software product that falls short of its promise.

While technical debt can't always be avoided, it can be reduced by striking a balance between business goals and development decisions. Since optimization of a software product takes time, timelines must be adjusted to accommodate opportunities to improve a product as much as possible prior to its release.

Avoiding technical debt in the first place requires close coordination between the client and the development team to make sure that the technical debt incurred isn't excessive. This means seeing eye-to-eye on coding and development decisions that may be compromised if speed of release is prioritized. Affected decisions include user experience, updated applications, and financial costs of addressing problems now vs. releasing patches in the future.

Excessive technical debt in software development means the constant development of patches and quick fixes post-launch. The excessive dependence on software patches means that the development of the software itself did not address crucial problems prior to launching, which can lead to an unpleasant user experience and increasing development costs for the client.

Electricity and fire are two of the greatest discoveries in human history. They have done more to enhance human life than any other inventions, but they have also taken the greatest toll in terms of human life if used unwisely. There is no doubt that technology, like any invention, can be used to injure or kill. But there is a greater risk, of course, for the person who uses a gun to kill someone than for the person who constructs a gun.

Computer's speed and power haved doubled every one and a half to two years since the 1960s and 1970s. This is exponential growth which is sustainable for now, and while some experts doubt that this rate can last for much longer, it's true for the time being.

Technology changes quickly because the rate of technological change is constantly accelerating. This is due to a number of factors, including the increasing complexity of technology, the increasing number of people working on developing new technologies, and the fact that each new generation of technology builds upon the previous one. As a result, the rate of change is increasing exponentially, and it is difficult for any one person or even any one generation to keep up with all the new developments.

Businesses develop custom software to create new products, services, or solutions to business problems that may not be available in the market. The problem may be a technology problem, or a business process problem, but it is a problem that someone has to solve. How do you choose the type of custom software to build? There are many choices available for custom software applications. You should choose the most applicable type of software and approach in order to satisfy your business requirements.