TSXV:ISD.H - Post by User
Comment by
majortom75on Jan 25, 2015 11:03am
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Post# 23360750
RE:RE:Any techies out there
RE:RE:Any techies out thereHey Rob,
I would say in general that the question is not always "can this feature or functionality be added to our product?" but should it be; particularly when we're talking about hardware changes vs software changes. As we've seen with some of the delays in getting the new hardware to market vs how quickly software can be developed to open up new opportunities and markets like the digital Real Estate sign (new software but existing hardware).
Often the business case for partnerships and integrations is much stronger than building the capability in-house. Many systems are moving towards open standards and application programming interfaces where you'll have an iSign software engineer and a partner engineer (let's say from a P OS system vendor) on a conference call or in a meeting room and the iSign guy will ask the P OS guy about what interfaces are exposed, on what TCP ports, are they using TLS for security and encryption, and what is the schema or format of the data that they either need to receive or send. The partner engineer may have the specifications already documented and provide those to the iSign engineer. Some coding happens and then they test the integration in a sand box... make some changes and continue to iterate and end up with a new integration between two products that couldn't previously work together. No hardware redesign was required at all but we still end up with a new end to end solution that provides value and benefits to customers and it didn't cost them much to develop that solution because they are re-using existing hardware.
If, however, a capability is identified that would add significant value but no one is currently providing it, then it may make sense to develop the hardware in-house as long as the ROI is there.
Note: I use the words "we" and "our" on occasion but I'm using it as a "royal we". I do not work for or represent iSign in any capacity. Just a shareholder who happens to work in tech and looking for (hopefully) a decent return on my investment.