The Customer

HipLink (formerly Semotus Solutions) is a privately held company that provides text and voice based wireless alert management solutions for emergency response, alarm management, mass notification and business continuity. The company’s flagship product is a wireless alerting platform that pushes out alerts via multiple channels (Pager, SMS, Email, Voicemail etc.) on all major cellular networks in the US, based on events generated by monitoring systems (typically indicating equipment failure or warnings).

The company’s clients include Lockheed Martin, General Motors Corporation, Hewlett Packard, Wells Fargo, Unisys, the Government of Alberta Canada, Honeywell and Cablevision (amongst others).

THE PROBLEM AND THE FOLIO3 SOLUTION

HipLink wanted to reduce its software development costs, so it could focus its resources more on sales and marketing, product strategy and onsite customer support. With an established customer base of hundreds of clients, the company was looking for an offshore development partner it could rely on to deliver new versions of its core products and customized solutions for its customers.

HipLink chose Folio3 as its development partner due to Folio3’s experience in developing mobile apps, expertise in enterprise systems and reputation for delivering high quality solutions.

After analyzing the requirements Folio3 assigned a dedicated development team to HipLink comprising of 20 full time resources, including mobile app developers and UI designers. This team worked on an aggressive timescale to develop two key systems for HipLink, which together are the driving force behind HipLink’s entire solution suite. These two systems include:

The HipLink Enterprise Server

An enterprise class web based messaging platform that provides real time message delivery and two-way communication capability across multiple devices, through a variety of communication protocols and is available in onsite, hosted or hybrid deployment models.

The HipLink Enterprise Mobile Notification Solution

An enterprise solution (available for the iOS, Android and Blackberry OS) that uses a series of mobile apps to provide private inbox support, persistent alerts, encrypted messages, two way messaging, remote administration, enterprise paging protocols, query status and response action execution.

The above solutions were designed and developed entirely by Folio3, based on the requirements provided by HipLink. Folio3 provided the initial technology selection as well as the product and application architecture designs. Based on these designs numerous prototypes of the applications were created, until an optimal solution was realized. Throughout this process the Folio3 team worked closely with HipLink, to collect user feedback and modify the designs and prototypes accordingly.

The project in currently on going with new features and enhancements constantly being added, based on user feedback and the recommendations provided by the Folio3 and HipLink teams.

Thanks to Folio3’s efforts, HipLink’s solutions are presently deployed at some of the world’s leading companies and organizations such as the United Nations, Lockheed Martin, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of NY Mellon, Credit Suisse, Motorola, General Motors, Toyota, Peps Co., Coca Cola, Alcatel, Lucent and Unisys (amongst others).

As a result, HipLink continues to be a strong and viable partner of Folio3 with the relationship now in its seventh year.

TECHNOLOGY USED

The above solutions were developed using a variety of platforms & technologies including:

Server-side Technologies

Windows, Linux, Sun Solaris, HP UX, IBM AIX, SQLite 3, MS SQL, MySQL, Apache and Microsoft IIS servers.

Programming Languages

Microsoft Visual C++ JavaScript, DOJO, cURL, JSON, AJAX, Prototype API, Clear Silver Template Lib and HTML/XML.

Platforms

iOS,
Android and
Blackberry OS

Voice Technologies

Intel Dialogic Voice Board, TTS Engines (Nuance Vocalizer and MS SAPI) & Asterisk Server based VoIP solutions.

Out-of-the-Box Integrations

LDAP, ESRI GIS, Siemens Fire Safety System, Remedy, Net IQ App Manager, HP NNM and Open View.

Our Success Stories

DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGY USED

The Folio3 team initially used the traditional waterfall model for development (with detailed specification documents for both the technical and functional design) and Microsoft Project as the project management tool. After the first year however the team switched to Agile Development as the development methodology and now uses Target Process as the project management tool.