Syncfusion: Building blocks for your applications Date:   Friday , June 05, 2009 Imagine you need to build an application for your customer. It's hard enough to keep up with your core business requirements, but beyond that you also have to worry about factors like User Interface (UI) and export formats. This is where Syncfusion, a software component vendor headquartered in North Carolina, comes in. When Innova Solutions, a software development company, needed a set of visual and non-visual components for their Windows Forms applications, Syncfusion's Essential Studio, which contains seven component libraries, became their choice. Marc Scheuner of Innova Solutions AG says, "We chose Essential Studio based on the breadth and quality of the components and the excellent support." In fact, what makes Syncfusion stand out is that it develops components that can work on any major platform. It has products for the platforms Windows Forms, ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC, Back Office, WPF, Business Intelligence and Silverlight. Syncfusion builds components for different sectors like banking, insurance and defense. By providing products and services to these markets, it helps customers focus on their core business instead of on peripheral concerns like user interface and export formats. "Our potential market is, however, not limited to these sectors. We believe that anyone building software applications is part of our target market," says Stefan Hoenig, Syncfusion CEO. Started in 2001, this company has won several industry awards. Syncfusion's Essential Studio Enterprise Edition was named a finalist in the Software & Information Industry Association's 24th annual CODiE awards in the category of Best Software Development Solution. Although Syncfusion started out with two products called Essential Grid and Essential Tools, in the past seven years the company has expanded to include products for various platforms. Of these, the Essential Studio Enterprise Edition includes all of Syncfusion’s component libraries. The company has since grown with offices in Chennai and has a global workforce of over 130 people. The major part of its market is in the U.S. and Europe. Syncfusion provides full source code as an option for their customers, allowing an easy way to debug—an added advantage that comes with their products. However, the benefits don't end there. Syncfusion also provides a very rich support interface for its customers. "This, along with a provision of components in every major platform, is what differentiates the company from other players in the field—particularly when it comes to the support system, which goes the extra mile," says Hoenig. A solid portion of employees looks after and supports the customers. Given their many accolades, one would think that the task of delivering innovative and high quality software components is easy, but that is far from true. There are challenges galore in this business. "Since application development has not gotten any easier, the biggest challenge for us is enabling solid productivity gains," says Hoenig. When dealing with so many platforms, like Windows Forms and ASP.NET, the need arises to stay up to date with technology changes as well as respond rapidly to those changes. Requirements are hence fairly complex in this field. On the company's road map ahead, Hoenig says that the future is in Business Intelligence (BI). "Although there are other players in this sector, there is a need to provide components at an affordable cost to small and mid-sized companies." According to the Data Warehousing Institute, in 2009 organizations driven by the need to cut costs and make room in the BI budget for new investments will investigate cost-effective BI as a replacement for existing tools. Envisioning the current trend in BI, Syncfusion is in the race to tap the BI market with its new launch of components—Essential Studio Business Intelligence Edition—which represents a powerful and cost-effective alternative built on the tried and tested Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services platform.