Software services and consultancy

If you're looking for someone to help you develop a computer system, we'd say that you want 3 things above all: experience, loyalty and integrity.  Here's what we mean.

Experience

When did you last read an advertisement for a computer job which read:

It just doesn't happen, does it? Not often, anyway. It's not for nothing that most programming job ads quote a minimum number of years of experience required. 

Our VBA, SQL, Visual Basic and C# programming courses are as good as they can be, but we end most courses by encouraging people to go back to their offices and practise, because there is simply no substitute for software development experience.

Our Wise Owl system development is led by Andy Brown and David Wakefield (you can see them here - sort of).  Andy and Dave are both in their 40s, and have both been writing systems for longer than they care to remember.  We are experts in Access, Excel, SQL Server, Visual Studio, ASP.NET, Visual Basic, Visual C# and VBA, and pretty good at many other software applications. 

However, most important of all - we bend over backwards trying to make our software easy to use - it's our number one priority when developing any system.  We've seen too many systems which are sophisticated, complex and technically brilliant, but which never get used (sadly, we've built a few ourselves in the past, before we learnt our lesson).

Loyalty

Many companies quite rightly place great importance on long-term support (you don't want to commission a system, and then find that the person who wrote it is in a hermitage in Mozambique). 

Our developers (Andy, Dave and Andrew) have been with Wise Owl for long time, and we plan on being around for some time to come (2 of us are directors of the company - where else would we go?).  So while we can't guarantee that we'll still be here in 20 years' time, we think there's a very good chance we will be.

Oh, and we fix all bugs as soon as practically possible, without charge (of course), and we don't insist that you sign expensive support or maintenance contracts.  If you have further work, we'll provide a quote for it; if you have a bug, we'll fix it without charge; otherwise, we won't charge you anything.

Integrity

Honesty is the most important quality in business.  Have a look at our refreshingly different approach to running a company.

Here are the worst practices in the consultancy industry, and how we avoid them:

• Pestering would-be clients endlessly (we don't pester, ever)
• Charging up-front for work (we never do this - unless of course you want us to)
• Restricting access to systems developed (if you've paid for a system, we think you should have the right to make any changes you want to it within your company or organisation)
• Expensive maintenance contracts (see above)

We will also give you honest advice - and regularly turn down work if we don't think you have a realistic understanding either of what a system needs to do or of how long it will take to develop.

And finally ...

If you want more information, just send us an email with your initial system specification - however woolly it may be!