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Company Frequently Asked Questions
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Who is IdeaBlade?
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A:
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IdeaBlade is an enterprise software vendor focused on .NET technologies and services.
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When were you founded and how big are you?
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IdeaBlade was founded in 2001 and shipped its first product to coincide with the
beta version of .NET. Since then, we have been in close alignment with both .NET
and Visual Studio; recently we shipped our DevForce 3.5 version with advanced business
rule validation capabilities. We are privately held and have about 25 employees.
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What is IdeaBlade DevForceTM ?
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IdeaBlade’s flagship DevForce product is a .NET application server and development
framework that speeds time to market and reduces the risks and costs of .NET development.
At the same time, DevForce enables .NET developers to roll out on-demand, Software-as-a-Service
(SaaS) applications through n-tier deployments over the Internet.
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Does DevForce include an ORM?
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We provide an ORM plus a very extensive set of object persistence, and data management
tools, plus also a production business object server that delivers n-tier deployment,
security, scalability, fault tolerance, centralized application deployment and monitoring,
and hybrid application deployment using Windows Forms and Web forms. The DevForce
framework delivers a Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture, Web Services/SOA
support, business rule validation, client-side caching, and one click deployment,
among other major features.
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Does DevForce include tools?
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The DevForce framework includes a number of rapid application development (RAD)
and object relational mapping (ORM) tools and components developers need to build
smart-client, n-tier enterprise applications in either C# or VB6. These tools act
as extensions of Visual Studio and can actually be accessed from within the Visual
Studio environment, and they support popular UI control suites such as those from
Infragistics and DeveloperExpress.
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Why would a development team use DevForce?
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Beneath the presentation and business logic layers of any enterprise application,
there is a layer of infrastructure many developers call the “plumbing”. This infrastructure
handles chores like data management, data presentation, reliable deployment, and
some application management tasks. This infrastructure is generic, universal, and
relentlessly difficult to write and maintain. DevForce provides significant portions
of this infrastructure so that developers can concentrate on the business logic
and presentation layers that deliver high value when the application is finished
and deployed.
Shipping since 2001, DevForce is the industry’s most mature and extensible .NET
application server and development framework. It is the only .NET platform that
delivers a run-time business object server for scalable and secure n-tier deployments;
enterprise-class persistence with ORM, caching, verification, and distributed transactions;
powerful development tools and components that are fully integrated with Visual
Studio; and a reliable migration path to, and support for, next-generation Microsoft
technologies, including LINQ, WPF and Silverlight.
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My developers are smart. They can do all of this themselves.
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Of course they can – we would never suggest otherwise! However, many development
teams are constrained for resources; they need to deliver really good applications,
really fast. So just as developers in the 90s adopted tools like Delphi and PowerBuilder
to speed their client/server development, today they are turning to DevForce for
their .NET projects. DevForce customers estimate they save up to 70% of their development
cycles by leveraging our framework. In addition to cutting development time, DevForce
reduces the risks inherent in application development, by providing a standardized
foundation for all applications – when data schema or business rules change, or
key developers move on to other projects, the development team does not have to
go into “crisis mode”. Over time, the use of such a standardized framework yields
significant productivity and efficiency benefits. In short, DevForce lets your very
smart developers build better code faster.
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I’ve heard IdeaBlade competes with Microsoft. True?
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No. In fact, IdeaBlade is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and a member of the
Microsoft Visual Studio Industry Partner (VSIP) program. Our DevForce product has
been certified to work with .NET, Visual Studio, and Windows Vista. In addition,
IdeaBlade participates in numerous Microsoft Technical Advisory Programs (TAP) and
is part of the Microsoft Patterns & Practices advisory council. IdeaBlade also has
four Microsoft MVPs– Rockford Lhotka, Juval Lowy, Billy Hollis, and Les Pinter –
on our Technical Advisory Council.
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DevForce sounds great, but I don’t want my development team to get locked
into a “black box” environment.
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DevForce was designed by .NET developers, for .NET developers. Because we ourselves
would never want to get locked in, we have built DevForce for maximum openness,
with a loosely coupled design and the ability for developers to “drop down” into
native .NET at any time. We are also willing to ship our source code to customers,
on a case by case basis.
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How should a developer get started evaluating DevForce? And how much time will
it take?
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IdeaBlade provides a no-time-limit, royalty-free, version of the DevForce framework,
called DevForce Express, available for download from our website
here. From there, the developer is advised to read our
Developer Brief, a high-level technical overview document, then dig
into our videos and tutorials on our learning materials
page and also be sure to visit our DevForce Forum discussion
board. If they want, developers can use all of these resources to build a sample
application fairly quickly, in a few days, to get a feel for DevForce’s capabilities.
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Learn More:
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About IdeaBlade
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About DevForce
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IdeaBlade Customers
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IdeaBlade Discussion Forum
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