Technology

Technology / PHP, MySql

Our team at Lateral has many years of experience delivering great web applications using PHP development, or LAMP based applications.

LAMP is an abbreviation for Linux Apache PHP & mySQL. This stack of technologies is comprised of all Open Source software. Over 50% of our web applications are built using LAMP technologies because they have excellent reliability and support, are very cost effective and can easily be updated.

Benefits:

• low hosting costs
• no licence fees
• no vendor lock-in / no monopoly pricing
• cross platform compatibility
• freedom & flexibility

What we’ve done so far... (examples):

• a large scale football site
• an online wikipedia
• 10s of simple websites
• a keyword tracking PPC (pay per click) tool
• integrations with WordPress, .NET, many webservices
• high ranking SEO websites
• jobboards
• job agregators
• hotel booking engines
• holiday booking engines
• freedom & flexibility

Technology / Microsoft .NET

Our development framework of choice for high scale, enterprise clients is Microsoft .NET

Benefits:

• high return on programming investments
• highly re-usable software
• highly scalable infrastructure
• significant ease to integrate with any software/hardware

What we’ve worked on so far... (examples):

• a huge hotel agregator (lots of servers, lots of traffic)
• top 5 UK brand – call centre application
• KPI Dashboards
• Offer/Merchandising tools
• Insurance & Medical Risk websites

Technology / Apple IOS

Lateral offers iPhone development outsourcing – both SDK (native applications) as well as web-led iPhone websites.

Although we’re fairly new to iPhone development (who isn’t):

• we have already developed a few of iPhone apps, and
• our team has tremendous experience in C++

So far there hasn’t been any technical challenge that we have not been able to solve for our customers.

By extending your software, application or ideas to iPhone, LATERAL helps you tap into a very exciting technology market.

The Apple iPhone has proven to be a very promising mobile platform with great features and innovative user interface. Developing for the App Store isn’t trivial, but we can help you leverage all existing learnings and bring your concepts live.

Technology / Android

Android has quickly gained market share becoming one of the lead Operating Systems in mobile technology.

We offer both native Android and mobile (HTML5 / CSS) apps development.

Our developers are massively experienced in Java programming and we've developed apps for high profile companies.

We can guide and help you explore the possibilities that might grow your user-base & revenue.

Technology / HTML, CSS, JS

We Provide:

• Pixel-perfect conversion of your original designs
• Top quality hand-coded XHTML & CSS webpages
• Search engine friendly (SEO) / semantic coding
• W3C Valid coding
• Cross-browser compatibility (yup – including IE6)
• Optimised images and code for faster loading pages

Why work with us?

• Super-fast delivery
• Great value – high quality & competitive prices
• Access to a pool of specialised resources
• Tremendous experience (we’ve built 100s of templates)

The usual process

1. Send us your your design (any format PNG/PSD, AI, JPEG etc will do)
2. We estimate the work required, delivery timescales
3. Upon sign-off we get cracking (slice the design in HTML, CSS table-less)
4. You end up with a fully compliant, W3C HTML/CSS template

Company size / Start-up

LATERAL possesses a great deal of experience working with start-ups, both privately funded or VC funded.
We’ve seen many companies rise or fall – apart from concept and marketing, technology + execution is key in the online world for success.

We offer the following services for start-ups:

• development at cost – where LATERAL has a vested interest (shares) in the start-up
• quick prototyping
• project incubation
• licensing of pre-existing IP (Intellectual Property), assets
• use of LATERAL’s facilities (hosting/servers, admin services, design)

Company size / Medium Size

Medium sized businesses are already established, with a proven business model.

In general, our services for Medium-sized businesses have been focused around:

• improvements (conversion, SEM (SEO/PPC))
• user interface (UI), redesigns
• tools
• lowering development cost
• innovation
• outsourcing, supporting in-house teams

Company size / Enterprise

LATERAL is well positioned to deliver for enterprise sized businesses.

Most large organizations usually suffer from a variety of issues caused by their size such as:

• slowness – lots of layers of approval
• inefficiency (80% planning, 20% doing)
• high risk environments (influencing up or down 1% of the customers has a big impact)
• bureaucracy
• lack of development resources

How can we help?

• we’re dynamic, flexibile
• track record working on the client side for businesses transacting over $100M /year
• access to a pool of resources
• lowering development cost
• access to innovation
• supporting in-house teams

By Need / Innovation Needed

This is the area where LATERAL works at its best.

How we do it?

• we hire the right people (not just “geeks” but well-rounded, creative individuals)
• we research
• we get everyone involved
• we brainstorm
• we try, prototype

A simple example of how we try to foster innovation is our “Fedex Day project”.
Inspired by Attlasian, this is an initiative which takes place once a month.

What’s this FEDEX Day about? this is about stimulating everyone to try:

• new ideas
• new technologies
• be creative
• have a constraint of 1 day work with a delivery at the end of it

What can I work on during Fedex Day?

• work on anything you like
• Work from anywhere you like (at the office, in a coffee shop, under the table, in the garage or park)

Rules:

• a single person must work @ their own project
• 1 day during work hours
• delivery must be sent before midnight
• the project must be “deliverable”

We offer prizes for the “winning” project, which will be judged on : creativity, effort, results.

By Need / Incubate

LATERAL possesses a great deal of experience working with start-ups, both privately funded or VC funded.
We’ve seen many companies rise or fall – apart from concept and marketing, technology + execution is key in the online world for success.

We offer the following services for start-ups:

• development at cost – where LATERAL has a vested interest (shares) in the start-up
• quick prototyping
• project incubation
• licensing of pre-existing IP (Intellectual Property), assets
• use of LATERAL’s facilities (hosting/servers, admin services, design)

By Need / Consulting

Lateral offers a range of consulting services:

Technology Consulting

We help our clients make the right decisions concerning technology choices and strategy. Sometimes it’s good to go for ready-made software, sometimes, business efficiency can only be achieved through tailor-made tools designed to automate process and help you scale.

Most team members have been working for the last 10 years in the technology space, in many sectors, with a variety of clients, from start-ups to enterprise.

Design and User Experience

LATERAL helps business develop online and offline presence to enable sales growth through a better customer experience.

Business Management

We understand (having been on the client side for many years) how to build a business from scratch. We understand how to design, build and market highly successful e-commerce websites.

This includes:

• Business analysis and audit
• Online Strategy
• Merchandising & Techniques for increasing online conversion
• People
• Project delivery
• Search Marketing (SEO and PPC)
• CRM
• Web Analytics (definition, technology choices, tracking)

Pricing Model / Fixed Price

The fixed-price model only works when:

• the specifications of the project are clearly defined, in detail
• the project scope does not change during implementation
• timescales are clearly defined, including milestones

For fixed-price projects, LATERAL takes on the risk associated with the delivery and pricing and therefore it is crucially important that all details are agreed before starting the work. Usually we work for a few days on a T & M (time and materials) basis, to try to establish the scope of the project, UI in detail. Only after the project is specc’ed in detail it is practical to proceed on a fixed-priced basis.

Pricing Model / T&M (Time and Materials)

The time & material model is essentially a “pay per day” pricing model. This is most suitable when a particular project isn’t well defined and cannot be estimated ahead. Long term customers prefer this model since everything is transparent on a daily basis. We use RADAR, our project management & tracking tool to formally communicate with our clients, who can see our progress day to day.

The risk for this model is scope creep, since it’s very tempting (for the client) to add many changes during work. These may be suitable for start ups or where quick changes and fast pace of development is essential.

Our standard pricing card is available on request.

Pricing Model / Dedicated Teams

Over 75% of our work is performed using this model.

The Dedicated Team pricing model means that we dedicate a team (1 or more employees) to a customer. This has many advantages such as:

• our employees is effectively also part of our customer’s team
• project management can happen on the client side
• very reactive pace of development

The risk with this model is that people (at our end) may become bored using the same technology, facing the same project every day, but we usually rotate individuals in order to: spread knowledge across the team and stimulate innovation.