A custom software application refers to a system designed from the ground up to meet a specific set of requirements; companies with unique and complex requirements often choose custom software development services to create a fully customized solution to solve their problems.
The opposite of custom software applications are commercially available software products. Unlike custom software, these products are not tailored to the requirements and goals of an organization. Rather, it is a “one size fits all” solution with generic features and functionality. Often times, companies struggle to find a standard software product that does exactly what they need, and they turn to software development services.
There are a plethora of custom software application development services offered by software companies which are generally categorized according to development platforms such as web, mobile, and desktop. Let’s take a look at some of the most common types of software development services offered by software companies around the world.
For more on this topic, see https://www.goodcore.co.uk/services/.
1. Development of web applications
Custom software development services include the development of web applications that run on a web server or browser instead of a device’s operating system. Web applications are accessible by users through a browser using an Internet connection. Custom web applications can take many forms, such as custom websites, multi-tenant SaaS software, web business applications, web portals, etc. These requests follow a client-server model where users are called “customer” and the customer facing part of the web application is called an interface – this is what you see on your screen when you open a website in the browser. The frontend is provided by an off-server server where the web application is hosted – this is the backend of the web applications. Web applications can also be designed to integrate with on-premise software systems and third-party services.
While web apps are intended for the web, they are also designed to target mobile devices through a mobile-centric approach, responsive design, and progressive web app features. Responsive web design refers to designing the web application in such a way that the design looks well on a variety of screen sizes. Whether the web application is displayed on a large computer screen, a small tablet screen, or an even smaller mobile phone screen, the design of the web application responds to the size and ensures a consistent user experience. . Most of today’s web applications are designed with a responsive, mobile-centric design approach, in which the user interface and user experience of the web application are designed with a focus on the most small mobile screen sizes, then on other screens.
2. Development of mobile applications
A software development services company also offers custom mobile application development as part of its custom software services. This service involves developing a mobile app from scratch, publishing the app to app stores, and maintaining the app after launch. Mobile application development services include the development of applications for different platforms such as iOS, Android and Windows. Among these device platforms, Android is the largest mobile platform; It is the operating system created by Google that not only supports Google devices, but also supports a range of other smart devices. iOS is the second largest mobile platform after Android; This is an Apple operating system and only supports Apple iPhone devices.
There are three main approaches to developing custom mobile applications:
● Development of native mobile applications: The code for native mobile applications is written using the programming language and development frameworks by the mobile platform. These are platform-specific mobile apps designed to run on specific device platforms such as iOS or Android. For example, an iOS app developed using Apple’s Swift language for iPhone devices only.
● Development of native cross-platform mobile applications: Like native apps, cross-platform native mobile apps also run directly on a device’s operating system. However, they can be written using a variety of programming languages and frameworks, not just platform specific technologies.
● Development of hybrid mobile applications: Hybrid mobile apps are a hybrid of web apps and mobile apps. They are basically web apps built using standard web technologies, but they are encapsulated in containers that allow them to run like native apps on mobile devices.
3. Development of desktop applications
Like mobile and web development services, custom desktop development services cover building software systems for PCs running Windows, Mac, Linux, and other operating systems. Most desktop apps are installable software apps that can work without the internet, making them ideal for working offline. Besides offline access and operation, many companies still prefer to develop custom desktop applications because they are more secure, easily integrated, and require high processing. Develop application development services are particularly suitable for companies that require the processing of large amounts of data on their system. There are different types of native desktop app development services that include Windows app development, macOS app development, and Linux app development.
Some common programming languages and frameworks used for developing desktop applications include .Net, C #, C ++, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Swift, Electron, Xamarin, and WinForms.
4. Development of custom software products
Custom software product development is a comprehensive category of services that covers the development from scratch of software products. This service covers the end-to-end product development process which includes several stages such as product strategy, design, development, launch, maintenance, support and expansion. Custom software product development is best suited for companies that want to monetize their software solution to generate revenue.
Product development may include the development of web software products, mobile applications, SaaS applications, and white label software. Mobile and web development has already been covered in the sections above. SaaS application development refers to the development of on demand, multi-tenant, or application software as a service. SaaS products are similar to web applications in that they are accessible over the internet through a web browser, but they are offered and hosted ‘on the cloud‘. White label software products, on the other hand, are software systems that a company marks as its own and sells to its customers based on their unique needs.
Since product development is a large-scale process that can take a long time, it is usually a very expensive development service. This is one reason why companies prefer offshore software development services for product development because they are cost effective.
