Hi, this is Don Hames, president of Providence Software Solutions, the home of XVT Cross Platform Studio 2010. It seems it is increasingly more difficult to do our jobs as developers these days. So often projects in businesses are understaffed, under budgeted and always in a hurry—expected to do more with fewer resources and yet be more efficient and effective. Still, we all work hard and apply our years of experience and training to build our software applications and products. We have pride in our craft.

Added to the lack of resources is the hectic pace. We try to put a due date on a fuzzy process that is dependent on variables over which we rarely have control. Following Best Practices as well as we can—always in a state of learning, using common sense and logic—we design and build software products to meet a need. Our skills have to be broad, our experience varied, and our ability and desire to learn has to be strong. We all have favorite editors, debuggers, compilers and tools we use to do our job. We enjoy what we do and we are good at it. And the pay is not bad either.

Constantly Changing Environments

There have been four major computer platforms over the last 20 years: Windows, of course, as well as Linux, Apple and UNIX. Certainly Windows should still be one of the platforms to target with our software, but it is no longer the only one representing a sizable market. Linux has gained noticeable market share and has become an option as the installed operating system on new PCs. Apple has taken off with their powerful and solid Macs, and their handy iPods and iPhones.  Over 20 years ago, when they first made their decision to keep their hardware architecture closed, it stunted their growth and acceptance. Today, that very decision may put them over the top. The ease of use of its operating system, the “instant-on” satisfaction, as well as the simplicity of adding software and hardware has endeared today's computer users, making them fanatical advocates (anyone who owns a Mac is hooked). Linux has made great strides in adding features that allow the non-technical user to navigate by just clicking the mouse. The UNIX systems are modernizing, and popular desktops like GNOME and KDE are making them more mainstream. Although still primarily for business use, if you look at companies like Sun Microsystems, you may begin to see UNIX as the operating system for more and more servers and even desktops. Makes your head spin! The only constant is change.

Platform Independence for C/C++

So what do we as developers do in the midst of this state of constant platform change? Simply put, we adapt. Wouldn't it be great if we could continue to write our software on the computer platform we are most familiar with but produce our product on multiple operating systems—without having to rewrite our code and maintain multiple sets of source code? Think of the time would we would save (not to mention avoiding the tedious job of replicating changes platform by platform to maintain the code) and the market expansion possible would make our efforts more profitable and allow us to offer what our competitor can not. It would separate us in the market. It would get us noticed.

At PSSI, we can help this become a reality for you. We provide a tool that allows you to visually layout your GUI and gives you a framework that will support your entire application. It generates ANSI C or C++ code from your GUI design that is platform independent. You can add your business logic, database access and the things that make your software unique from any other, and only do it once. All of the source code can then be checked out or copied to any other supported operating system, loaded into the compiler and built into a native executable on the new operating system. It's that simple, it's that straight forward. No hype, no games, no kidding. You use XVT to layout your GUI, generate the source code, add your business logic and keep it as your source code for all platforms. To add a new platform, just check out or copy your source code to the new platform, compile, and you are done.

We are re-launching XVT to take a totally new approach to selling powerful and much-needed software. That approach springs from my own day to day work as a developer. If you need the cross platform power that XVT brings to the table, that’s great. If not, that's fine too. We just want to help you where we can. Not every one needs to develop software and have that single development effort gain them 14 platform/OS combinations. But if you are one that could use this type of advantage for your development projects, then we are here for you.

What we are going to do differently to make this happen? Keep it simple. There is no need to spend hours, or sometimes days, reviewing software products to determine how much time and effort they will save you and to determine if they are affordable. Well, we’re making them affordable. We’ve slashed our prices by half. So now all you have to ask is if XVT is something that will benefit you or not. If you have decided to take advantage of our tools, then your decisions are simple: Do you want to develop with C or C++? How many developer seats do you need? That's it. One price includes a subscription to the software, access to monthly updates and bug fixes, and the technical support you need. Not only is the price is less than half of what we have been selling XVT for in the past but the price drops again when you stay with us the second year. Keep it simple, offer the ability to write platform independent software with one development effort and make it affordable. 

Join the Revolution

This would be great if that’s all there is, but for me the best part is yet to come. By joining the XVT team, you will have a voice in the direction of the XVT tools development, be able to participate in forums to discuss issues and find answers with access to knowledge bases as well as online documentation and a help desk. You can become as active as you would like with us—our source was slashed by two-thirds, so you can get in on pushing the envelope and helping us develop new features. Over time, we will become a community of developers who write code for multiple platforms and collect and make available the knowledge, tips, samples, how tos, instructions, references and recommendations of thousands of XVT developers around the world. When you become part of the XVT team, you become part of a cross platform development family and, therefore, benefit from the collective wisdom and participate in the constant evolution of the XVT tools.

This is a chance to join a revolution in the cross platform development community. The XVT website will be a valuable resource for developers seeking information for cross platform development, whether they use our tools or not. We are going to handle this developer to developer. We are developers too and we get it. This will be grass roots, project to project, straight up tools and information for you to do your job better.

I offer you a personal invitation to check us out and see that this is not just another marketing gimmick. Visit our website and if you see something you don’t agree with or understand, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and share your insights. We want to do this because it makes sense and there is a need for tools like XVT. Come see us, read, contribute, make suggestions, and try our tools. Together we can put useful tools and knowledge in the hands of thousands of developers. This collective feedback and input makes us all better developers and so the revolution begins.

Thank you for listening and we are looking forward to welcoming you to the XVT family.

 Take care,

Don Hames,  dhames at xvt dot com
President
Providence Software Solutions, Inc.