Software Product Development for a Global Leader in Image Processing

Customer

The customer, a market leader in image processing, has operations outside of its European headquarters in the USA, Japan, and Korea, as well as a broad spectrum of cutting-edge technologies and patents. They provide award-winning products and solutions that enhance the user experience in all areas of digital imaging, including the processing, compression, storage, printing, and presentation of digital pictures. The company’s patented intellectual property includes the following examples:

• Mobile phone, tablet, and digital camera manufacturers’ embedded software
• programme for assessing image quality
• Tools for photographers and imaging professionals to improve their photos

Challenge

A standalone application to assist customers update images by adding analogue and vintage effects was the customer’s goal for one of their products in 2011. This was accomplished in 2011. The customer was still in need of a dependable development team that was prepared to begin right away after a string of failed outsourcing projects with Eastern European vendors. WebservX contacted the business to offer its 22 years of expertise in developing cross-domain software. The biggest difficulty was making the outsourcing-averse client into a long-term business partner (76 percent of WebservX’s revenue comes from clients it has been working with for over a year).

Cooperation

Taking off

In order to save the development costs by 40%, WebservX suggested using the Qt framework to create an application that runs on both Windows and Mac with the labour of a single team rather than two. After both parties signed a strict NDA to protect the Customer’s intellectual property, WebservX dispatched 4 Qt Developers, 3 Testers, and 1 Scrum Master to work under a T&M agreement with solely the Product Manager on the Customer’s side. The team provided thorough planning, architectural design, and some recommendations to reduce development costs and improve product features. Originally designed to be a plugin, the product later evolved into a standalone tool that could be easily integrated with other image-processing applications like Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, and more.

Managing differences

Despite the increase in sales following the product introduction, the study exposed numerous discrepancies in the mindsets of both firms toward collaboration. The customer was hesitant to give third parties access to its infrastructure (such as time tracking and revision control systems) due to security concerns. In order to deliver a possibly shippable product at the end of a sprint, WebservX needed some time to adapt their development methods to the Customer’s concept of Scrum. However, encouraged by the product’s success on the market (70,000 unique users), the businesses continued to share knowledge and invest in one another’s success.

New projects on the way

As the development team, now larger, worked on the software’s upcoming, improved version, numerous side projects were started. WebservX created a tool and plugin that make it possible to repair complex perspective problems, distorted objects, and various types of distortions. A team of two testers was also employed to perform quality control tests on a desktop programme that would enhance cameras by reducing noise and emphasising important textures and details to extract the most out of an image.

Struggling for partnership

Because the customer was still apprehensive about continuing to work with WebservX, they even began a parallel outsourcing project with another vendor at that time. The rival was probably just as technologically proficient and advanced as we were, but because it was just another side project for them, they were not driven by the product. According to Aliaksei Dziadovich, the WebservX project manager who made a big contribution to building a positive relationship with the Customer, they were exceptional at following to the backlog precisely and did not raise any objections. Finally, in an effort to achieve its lofty objectives, the company chose WebservX as a technological partner.

Ramping up the team

To improve the framework, which serves as the cornerstone of all of the company’s products and enables repairs to take place, three C++ professionals from WebservX joined the customer’s development team.

In an effort to increase market visibility, the company planned to submit one of its Mac items to the App Store. Four more WebservX Qt developers were assigned the responsibility of updating the code to meet the requirements.

Using both fixed pricing and T&M models, WebservX continued to work on both new and better applications over the course of the following four years. In 2015, more than 30 specialists worked on 7 projects; some of them extended the customer’s development teams, while others created products from scratch.

Creating breakthrough products

A cutting-edge mobile app and a portable accessory that can be attached to iOS devices and enable the capture of high-quality photos are two of the future products that are most eagerly anticipated. With time-to-market being the main priority in such a competitive technology-driven industry, the WebservX team of 5 Developers, 6 Testers, and 1 Scrum Master, along with a variety of distributed development groups, was working to deliver the product on time.

Thriving together

WebservX, a seasoned provider of IT services, not only assisted the client with product development but also with user interface design and strengthened their IT infrastructure (for example, by smoothly transitioning from Git to SVN). “We have united; we are now a resource and a capability of the Customer,” asserts Aliaksei Dziadovich. They are also willing to invest in us by scheduling numerous training sessions and business trips in order to strengthen the partnership.

Results

The Customer has paved their way to commercial success on a global scale thanks to the flexibility and speedy time-to-market (3-4 months for each product) they achieved while developing their development capabilities with WebservX. In the past 4.5 years, the organisations’ partnership has grown from one team of 8 specialists to seven teams with more than 30 people.

The Customer and WebservX have consequently jointly released 12 products (6 of them created entirely by WebservX). One of the products has been recognised as the Best Imaging Application by a significant press photographers association. The company is currently getting ready to grow WebservX teams and launch new initiatives.

Technologies and Tools

Intel IPP library, RLM Activation, Calabash, Qt, C++, Objective-C, iOS, Xcode, Cocoa, Visual Build,.NET, Visual Build, InstallShield, PackageMaker, Intel IPP library