CAT

Index ID: 07-00-E
Product:	CAT Accelerator 1.0
Company:	Catalyticsoft Pty Ltd
2007 Consensus Software Awards

Product at a glance
Product type	Application – Automated Software Development
Target Industry Sectors	Horizontal – targeting software developers both professional and non professional across all industries
Fault tolerance	General consumer use
Innovation indicators	All indicators flagged Creating a business advantage Breaking new ground Expanding user horizons New technology Social change or empowerment of users Transforming existing processes
Performance indicators	All indicators flagged Enterprise quality system Enthusiastic customer support Standards and codes compliance Exceptional product support Professionally executed code Proof of real world performance Successful beta testing Real user benefits Sets new industry benchmarks Other?
Potential indicators	All indicators flagged Government or other agency support Designed for international use Enterprise structured for growth Global design standards Identified potential markets International partner or distributors Success in home or export markets Other – such as awards, grants etc
Contact for more information	Chris Coleman Chief Executive Officer

CAT Accelerator is the first in a powerful new breed of software – we call it Catalytic Automation Technology – and it provides you with automated application development. This revolutionary technology provides rich meta data in the created application allowing you to change the look and feel, business rules, and functionality at runtime.

CAT Accelerator produces n-tier enterprise level, data driven web applications for the .NET framework in minutes with no coding. CAT Accelerator includes a best practice, feature rich, application framework which includes role and user based security, dynamic menus, List/Search, View and Edit pages with full master detail support. It meets Microsoft’s exacting standards for coding and commenting and leverages Microsoft’s Enterprise Library.

CAT Accelerator provides a significant competitive advantage, allowing relatively small development teams to outcompete larger, low cost offshore teams. CAT makes In-sourcing a highly competitive option.

With CAT Accelerator’s special introductory price, it is cheaper than most books on coding, and produces a fully functional, commented application using best practice coding techniques.

The following screen shot is of a application that was created in 2 minutes using Microsoft’s Northwind Database and CAT Accelerator – in this case a Tree Edit page is being used to modify an employee record. Note the role based security and horizontal Menu.

In this second screen shot the standard edit page is being used. It sports a tree popup showing who reports to whom, tabs for Orders related to the Employee and child tabs and grids for related Employees and Regions. The Menu has been changed to show both a horizontal and vertical menu and the colour and layout scheme changed – all from the same application created in 2 minutes

CAT Accelerator and the CAT suite are disruptive technologies – that is they profoundly challenge the fundamental assumptions underpinning the process, timeframes and costs involved in software development. They create a significant business advantage for adopters who will be able to outcompete significantly larger teams.

Earlier technologies focused on accelerating code development by generating elements of the coding effort though the use of templates and then later through Patterns and Models. Most recently this has been integrated into the more comprehensive concept of a Software Factory. These approaches have sought to commoditize elements of coding expertise. In general their goal has been to help developers produce well architected code more quickly. CAT Accelerator has instead shifted the focus to eliminating manual code writing through the use of automation both for developers and non developers.

To make this clear, if an application represents a very high level of automation then CAT Accelerator is one step before – automating as much of the development activity as possible but giving you the freedom to modify and build a range of applications. This is shown in the following diagram:

CAT Professional and CAT Enterprise extend on CAT Accelerator, allowing whole development teams to capture and automate local and global best practice. In this case both share similarities with earlier technologies. However, once automated they will allow individuals with relatively low coding knowledge to produce high quality code without typing a single line of code. Ongoing feedback adjustment and automation continues to accelerate the speed and quality of the application created and increase the levels of automation. This is the 80/20 rule in action as shown in the following diagram:

In this model the best developers focus on capturing, genericizing and automating best practice. Those still learning their trade focus on using the automated best practice code – ensuring that 80% or more of the code they create is equivalent to the best developers. Any new unique code or weaknesses in the automated code can then be fed back to the best developers for further automation or refinement. This represents a fundamental change in the processes involved in software development. It allows novices programmers and business people to produce code and indeed fully functional applications to the same exacting standards as the experts – without writing any code.

CAT represents a synthesis of technologies (code generation, expert systems, automation) and methodologies (Catalyticsoft’s Agile Development Methodologies and Automation Methodologies).

Using CAT Accelerator and Catalyticsoft’s development methodologies Catalytic’s own consulting practice has consistently achieved savings of a factor of 10 for their clients – that is applications are taking on average only 10% of the time to develop using traditional techniques and of course costing a tenth of the price than if more traditional techniques had been used.

CAT Accelerator has achieved such high levels of automation and efficiency by focusing on a specific problem space – in this case data driven web applications using Microsoft’s .NET 2.0 or 3.0 platform in the C# language using the Microsoft SQL 2000 or 2005 databases. It is in projects in this space that such savings are achieved using the current version of CAT Accelerator. Catalyticsoft have also achieved similar savings using modified versions of CAT Accelerator for PocketPC, VB.NET applications and windows applications.

Upcoming versions of CAT Accelerator will extend the technology to target Microsoft’s Ajax technology and advanced features of the .Net 3.0 framework. Additional problem spaces being targeted are Windows based applications on Vista and Mobile 5 based applications.

Developers generally develop their expertise through reviewing code developed by other developers. CAT Accelerator augments this process by creating best practice, commented code which may then be further enhanced by developers. Because they are working with best practices from day one they rapidly pick up the coding and commenting standards and practices shown in the code. This rapidly accelerates learning. In the case of CAT Professional and Enterprise this is further augmented through the capture and automation of both local and global best practice by the automation team. This allows best practice to be rapidly spread across an entire organisation and indeed implemented without training. Because of the automation, developers using CAT are instantly able to use the new best practice to produce code without needing additional training. This is because the key questions asked by the experts when using or configuring the new coding element are captured during the automation process and asked of the developer when using CAT. Of course they will quickly learn the new practices by reviewing the code created by CAT.

We have chosen to highlight the dramatic differences between traditional development and development using CAT Accelerator using the Commented Lines of Code produced per hour across a real world application. It should be highlighted the Commented Lines of Code is not a perfect metric because it does not take into account the utility or complexity of the code or indeed the quality of the code. However, given that these are real world applications that are now in use, or will be shortly in use, the metric is a useful starting point. Because the code created has been pretested the use of CAT Accelerator also reduces testing and inspection time for any given application – that is CAT Accelerator leads to higher quality while reducing development times – two metrics which are traditionally in conflict.

Various studies have indicated that average numbers of commented lines of code per hour for development teams range between 10 and 85, depending on the nature of the coding assignment and the language being used. (The Personal Software Process Overview, Watts, Humphrey, The Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213).

Here are some comparatives using CAT Accelerator and Catalyticsoft’s CAT technologies and methodologies:

iTrust’s founders sought proposals for development of their revolutionary application both locally and across the globe. iTrust were faced with spending several hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of development effort if they followed the offered traditional development approaches.

Microsoft introduced them to Catalyticsoft who were able to transform both the costs and timeframes through the use of CAT Accelerator. This significant enterprise level application is showing sub-second response times with millions of records and has been built using .NET 2.0 and leverages Microsoft’s ASP.NET AJAX. It will go live in late February 2007 and will have had 7 months of development effort with one developer and one project manager, and has cost the founders a fraction of the price tag that would have been required to develop the application using traditional approaches.

Statistics to date show 819 hours billed which represents an average of 943 Commented Lines Of Code per hour. This was achieved with one developer and one project manager. If manually written assuming the upper range of 80 Lines of Code Per Hour this would have taken 12,033 hours.

Mainpac were initially introduced to Catalyticsoft by Microsoft. Catalyticsoft used their automation technology to produce a rapid prototype of Mainpac’s Asset Management system in C# with one day coding effort. Following this Mainpac contracted Catalyticsoft to help them produce their new Enterprise Asset Management System and to develop a new Health Care application.

Mainpac had an existing team of six Delphi developers working on the new Delphi version of their product, with a Paradox backend, over a 2 year period. Towards the end of this two year period Catalyticsoft were contracted to produce a parallel version in C# using ASP.NET and a new Microsoft SQL Server backend. This product is known as Mainet. With a team of 2 ½ developers utilizing early versions of their CAT technology they were able to catch up and then exceed the functionality of the Delphi application in six months. Mainet is being distributed across the globe. Later work with Mainpac included the development of some revolutionary approaches to Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) which allowed functionality to be turned off or on or routed to an alternative web based provider.

www.mainpac.com.au : Connect2Care – health care application for hospitals at home.

Mainpac also has connections into the Health Care industry and contracted Catalyticsoft to help them develop their new entry into that market – Connect2Care – an ASP.NET application which focused on helping health care providers provide hospital care in the home. This enterprise level application was created with just under six months development effort. In this case Catalyticsoft were able to leverage an early version of CAT Accelerator to greatly reduce, development timeframes and associated development costs.

www.comops.com.au Catalyticsoft was contracted by Microsoft to provide a jumpstart to assist ComOps in creating a PocketPC version of their internationally recognised Sales Automation Management (SAM) suite of products.

Over a weekend utilizing CAT automation technology we developed a functional prototype that was then demonstrated to a client at 11:00am on the following Monday. We then worked with ComOps to develop version 1.0 of the Pocket SAM product in a two week period. This represented 60 billed hours of work and produced 4,799 Commented Lines Of Code per hour. Estimate if manually coded at 80 Lines of Code per hour: 5,077.

Catalyticsoft also develop web services to provide integration with the server based SAM product – this was known as Pocket SAM WebSync. This was produced with approximately 20 hours of effort and represented 5,281 Commented Lines Of Code per hour. Estimate if manually coded at 80 Lines of Code per hour : 1,970.

CAT has the potential to transform the way software development is conducted, locally and across the globe. It allows relatively small development teams to outcompete larger teams that are not using the technologies. It sets new standards for the cost, quality and timeframes involved in application development.

CAT Accelerator has been developed using industry best practice coding standards and indeed enforces best practice coding standards. Catalyticsoft have been working closely with Microsoft in developing the system and they have guided its development to ensure that it continues to meet industry best practice and aligns with the Microsoft Road Map.

We are currently updating CAT Accelerator to take advantage of Microsoft’s newly released ASP.NET AJAX and new elements of the .NET 3.0 framework. We are also working on a new version of CAT Accelerator to automate the development of Windows based applications on the new Vista operating system and are in the process of completing a version to target Mobile 5 devices.

Catalyticsoft has funded the development of the CAT Suite through its consulting related activities. These activities have also allowed Catalyticsoft to test its technologies in real world environments which has both lead to enhancements to its technologies and methodologies and has also led to ongoing skills development for its staff. CAT has enabled the company to maintain a relatively low head count while competing for significant development engagements.

Catalytic intends to maintain a small consulting service to assist in ongoing funding of its operations and to maintain skills currency of its staff and to experience firsthand real world testing of its products. However, from a product perspective a low head count for maintenance and support of the product will be maintained with a small sales force targeting primarily web based sales and direct sales to large scale events.

Catalyticsoft have focused their sales on a web based strategy. Sales are therefore highly related to driving traffic to the Catalyticsoft web site and ensuring conversions to sales. Google Adds, Blogs and Affiliate Marketing form elements of this strategy. Catalyticsoft will also be releasing a free cut down version of their product known as CAT Accelerator Lite which will further help drive adoption and referral sales. We are also working on a book on the automation process to help further raise awareness.

Viral Marketing through blogs and discussion forums and affiliate reviews are also being pursued.

Magazine Reviews and Adds and presentations at major conferences will also be used to further raise awareness and drive traffic to the Catalyticsoft site.

Catalyticsoft will be establishing a reseller network for the Professional and Enterprise versions of their products initially within Australia. At this point they are targeting China and Taiwan and have made initial contacts in both countries in 2006.

CAT Accelerator will primarily be sold via the web and English speaking markets are currently the primary target. Catalyticsoft are in discussion with a Taiwanese based company to assist in translating the package into mandarin with the intent of targeting the rapidly growing Chinese markets in the second quarter of 2007. Initial trips to China have also established connections with Government, Educational and business representatives.

German audiences are also targeted with Catalyticsoft having access to native German speakers for translation and they have established contacts in Hamburg to assist in establishing a physical presence and to capitalise on one of the world’s largest computer shows, CEBIT.

This defines the key markets being pursued by Catalyticsoft and highlights the potential growth of the CAT Accelerator. To quantify this – a 1% market share in 2008 would represent US$5.5 million assuming Catalytic maintained the existing special introductory price of USD$99.

The following table shows projections of .NET markets by regions based on IDCs projections and Microsoft’s estimates of .NET developers. Catalyticsoft intends to initially target the Asia/Pacific region and then begin both through web based sales and direct presentations at Microsoft events. It will then shift its focus to North America and Western Europe.

CAT provides an opportunity for a relatively small pool of developers to out compete a significantly larger development pool – even if that pool has a relatively low cost per head.

To put this in context: How many Outsourced developers does it take to write 100,000 commented and bug free lines of code in 2 minutes? The answer is clearly very many if it were even possible. Automation changes the equation and allows a country like Australia to compete in a knowledge industry like software development despite its relatively low population base. It allows a small team with very high expertise to be leveraged so that they automate the bulk of the development activity for the larger pool of Australian developers.

Catalyticsoft have demonstrated the viability of this approach through their consulting practice over the past three years and are now planning to target the various levels of Australian government with a plan to extend this opportunity across the country through the establishment of Rapid Development Hubs.

Contact Details
Principal contact:	Chris Coleman Chief Executive Officer chris.coleman@catalyticsoft.com 0438153646
Company:	Catalyticsoft Pty Ltd ABN: 44105039558 14 Kneale Street Holland Park West 4121 www.catalyticsoft.com
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