DataArt was named one of the top five companies for career advancement, according to a rating by Ukraine’s leading business weekly Business Status. The companies were rated based on their philosophy/mission statement, “ideal employee”, career track opportunities and attrition rate.
DataArt is known for its focus on employees, their well-being and career advancement options. The company attracts top talent with its professional development programs, challenging projects, flexible work environment, universal medical insurance and family/kids initiatives. The slogan “Enjoy IT” is diligently observed, to ensure that employees not only enjoy working on Information Technology projects, but enjoy being part of the company. Attrition rate at DataArt is less than 5%, the lowest in the industry.
Among other companies that made the cut are Nestle, ABB and Raiffeisen Bank.
DataArt was named The Best IT Employer in Russia in 2004.
DataArt today announced it has successfully developed a new software application built on Windows Azure™, Microsoft’s cloud services operating system. The application, PhotoCloud, enhances DataArt’s cloud computing expertise, expands its development capabilities and proves the company’s ongoing R&D commitment to mastering new technology platforms.
PhotoCloud is an online photo manager that allows authenticated users to create albums and upload unlimited images. Unlike similar applications designed to run on traditional environments, PhotoCloud enables unlimited capacity for data storage and processing instances. It also allows the PhotoCloud album manager to quickly and easily scale resources up or down depending on the workload.
“Cloud computing opens a lot of new opportunities, particularly for startups, which drive a significant amount of business for us,” said Dmitry Yakovlev, Vice President at DataArt. “It practically eliminates the high upfront investment in resources and opens numerous new business opportunities, particularly by way of mobile and tablet applications.”
Windows Azure serves as the development, service hosting and service management environment for cloud applications. DataArt has vast development expertise in Azure supported standards and protocols, including Microsoft Visual Studio, PHP, XML, REST and SOAP, so it was a natural evolution for the company. In addition to Windows Azure, DataArt is developing cloud prototypes for Amazon EC2 and Google App Engine.
DataArt has deep domain expertise within financial technology, telecom, online travel and mobile solutions, all of which continue to accelerate their uptake of cloud computing technologies. The company is also working with a client to build a cloud-based medical records system on Windows Azure, which the client plans to move in-house to capitalize on economies-of-scale as it increases its customer base.
DataArt hosted its third Travel Technology Executive Panel in London, to debate whether the travel industry is ready to transform a mobile phone into a booking tool and to discuss ways to monetize the platform.
Close to a hundred guests gathered in central London to hear the leaders of the travel technology industry discuss the mobile revolution. The debate, moderated by Graham McKenzie, Managing Director of TravelMole, revealed that there were still many bars to booking travel via smart phone and confusion about how to make it work.
Tony Grubb, CEO of digital media company Steely Eye, told the audience: “Mobiles are not going to go away. They are not a fad. These devices have as much computing power as the Apollo space craft. But we have to make sure what we are doing with mobiles is relevant to the market because relevance equals sustainability.” Fellow panelist Tim Russell, Managing Director of Amadeus UK, said that there was still a fuzziness about the business model when it came to customers booking travel on their phones. He explained: “My great concern is that a lot of the information comes from people like us. Ultimately with the new smart phones they are accessing information in live time and hitting our systems when right now there is no clear commercial model. Normally we get our money from airlines and hotels but now that people are accessing the information willy nilly what happens? Someone has to pay for that.”
Bobby Healy, CTO of Cartrawler, said the most obvious problem with getting people to book on a mobile was that most of the time there was simply no need. He said: “In travel, the average advance purchase time for a flight is 44 days. With a hotel it’s 30 and with a car it’s 19 days. You don’t need a mobile to book it because you’ve clearly got enough time to get to a PC to make your booking.”
However, emerging markets like India and China where internet booking patterns have yet to become entrenched tell a very different story. Soren Langelund, co-founder of cruise website Ewaterways, told the panel: “Uptake on mobile booking is slow here but it isn’t in places like Japan and China. It’s about time and adaptation. Offer the service and people will eventually get used to it and make bookings with it like they do there.”
Tony Grubb added: “Look at the online world in the UK some years ago. There was a real reluctance to make online purchases in comparison to the U.S., Japan and the Far East. But it’s a cultural thing and every day it changes. Now people are happy to book online. The same will happen with mobile.” He said mobile booking would also grow as the UK’s younger demographic did. He said: “Kids are using mobiles at a very early age and the moment they hit 18, or even earlier, they are going to be buying stuff on them. They are not afraid of the technology. With people over 45, however, the numbers who buy things on their phone drops off dramatically.”
One audience member cut through the technology soul searching, stating that the simple reason that people did not book via their mobiles was that they simply didn’t know how to, with poor instructions and complex, unintuitive processes.
Dmitry Bagrov, Senior VP of European Business at DataArt, noted that although the technology is ready to provide a foundation for new services, many travel companies are stuck debating whether a comprehensive approach to mobile solutions is necessary. He said, “The reason for the delay in taking active steps in the direction of mobile is that many companies still think of new services and technologies as something requiring a significant effort and upfront investment, while in fact many mobile solutions can be launched on a modest budget and without delay.”
DataArt today announced its partnership with BlueWorld Ltd., UK’s premier provider of Microsoft solutions, to deliver multi-currency solutions, bespoke workflow models and data processing mobile applications.
BlueWorld Ltd is a Microsoft Gold Partner, providing multicurrency project and financial accounting management and reporting using Microsoft’s Dynamics SL with the web enabled Business Portal. DataArt is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and has been a member of Microsoft .NET Early Adopter Program (.NET EAP) since its inception in 2000, accepted into the program from fewer than 40 selected software companies worldwide.
With this partnership, DataArt’s and BlueWorld’s offering reaches new heights to include services in developing multi-currency processing and reporting solutions, complex bespoke workflow modules that include advanced reporting, and integration with other enterprise systems. The suite of DataArt services includes applications for data input and retrieval for Android, iPhone, Blackberry, Symbian and Windows Mobile. With BlueWorld and DataArt there is real time access to critical corporate data.
DataArt announced that it has helped Navmii, a leading satellite navigation company in the UK, to integrate its software with digital map provider AND, allowing for radical new pricing of a fully functioning GPS Navigation applications for iPhone.
The integration of Automotive Navigation Data (AND) into existing Navmii mobile application, implemented by DataArt, gave birth to a new iteration of GPS Navigation application for iPhone available for a fraction of the cost of other GPS applications. Currently available for France, Spain, Germany and The Netherlands, at €3.99 per country, Navmii GPS Live will be rolled out to all continental European countries within months, with the U.S. soon thereafter. Navmii GPS Live is a fully functioning suite of GPS Navigation applications for the iPhone. Users can search for an address by city, street, house or postcode and be instantly routed there with voiced directions. Navmii also provides live search for local facilities with integrated Microsoft Bing search, and voice directions and menus in local language.
“Outside of a GPS manufacturer, it’s very hard – and rare – to find the type of technical expertise in an outsourcing company that’s needed for this type of application,” said Peter Atalla, CEO of Navmii. “DataArt’s deep expertise in both navigation and LBS technologies made them a natural choice. We’ve have consistently been impressed with the level of innovation and rapid delivery at DataArt.”
DataArt had originally matched Navmii software with PosiMotion’s G-Fi mobile network / GPS router to develop the application. The application uses G-Fi’s satellite GPS for more accurate positioning than standard cellular or Bluetooth triangulation, and now has integrated AND digital maps.
