For years, I was convinced we worked as solutions integrators or systems implementors in the application development (enterprise and web) groups. I was wrong.
Our major software (SungardHE Banner ERP) is an Oracle based COTS (Commercial Off the Shelf) application and our collaboration software comes from IBM – Lotus Domino. We would make certain mods to the applications for example to “Canadian-ize” Banner Finance for tax rules but for the most part would implement as close to baseline as possible. Since starting the EA practice @ BCIT, I began capturing, documenting and analyzing information on our application architecture.
Here are some stats from our May 2007 Application Portfolio showing number of applications based on Application Development Environment:
Apps by Application Development Environment
PHP 47 <—————- BCIT developed
Proprietory 38
Domino 38 <————- BCIT developed
PL/SQL 22 <———— BCIT developed
Oracle Forms 14 <——- BCIT developed
Java 13<—————– BCIT developed
HTML 6
IWR 3
MS/Access 2
Open Source 2
MacOS 2
Discoverer 1
Impromptu/Powerplay 1
LDAP 1
MS Exchange 1
Cognos IWR 1
N/A 1
Windows 1
none 1
Novell 1
Oracle Forms/PL/SQL 1
Oracle Forms/PL/SQL/PHP 1
SQL/Server 1
Multiple 1
PHP, Domino, PL/SQL, Oracle Forms and Java applications are all BCIT developed apps! That is 134 applications out of 200 applications in our portfolio. With the further development of web delivered applications and services, I see this as a growth area for IT Services.
Bottom line, I changed my mind (based on some clear facts), we are a development shop!!! Comments?