Automate your business with "web applications"

No doubt you've heard of "web applications," "web-enabled applications," and "web services" and how they will revolutionize the way business is conducted.

Numerous consulting companies extol the benfits of web apps and offer to implement them for your company for a cool million or two.

None of these companies likes to actually define just what a web application is.

Herewith our attempt at a definition:

A web application is a system that delivers the functionality of a regular computer program (or system) to the user via the web.

In other words, you can sit at your computer (running Netscape or Internet Explorer over the Internet) and interact with a program which is running -- not on your computer -- but on another computer somewhere else on the Internet.

There's nothing new about that. You've been using web applications ever since you started using a search engine like Google or AltaVista.

What's different today is that the software tools are now here that enable software developers (like us) to develop these applications (and far more elaborate ones) far more easily than before.

The advantages to you are twofold:

• You can have the functionality of a multi-user networked software system without having to set up a network (other than the Internet) or a central server to run the software.
• Your web application can be accessed from anywhere you like. Your sales force or field staff can access it via PDA or laptop. You can enable access for telecommuters and contractors. Remote offices need only a simple computer and an Internet connection to gain full access to the system.

Unlike most of those young upstart web "design" firms, at Gulfbridge we've been developing software systems since 1972. We know the architecture of the Internet inside and out. We know how to analyze a business situation, design a system, and manage a development project.

We specialize in software development using the LAMP platform (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP) as well as Java, C, and C++. LAMP is the most widely-used development platform for web applications. It is non-proprietary and open-source, thereby maximizing reliability and security, avoiding any "lock-in" to proprietary technologies, and minimizing costs.