99XT Visit to University of Peradeniya

Process - 99X Technology & Security

Tech Talk

How ‘IT’ Changed My Life

Colombo Agile Camp

In this Issue...

99X Technology (formerly Eurocenter) is a Company specializing in delivering High Quality Software Product Engineering services with offices in Colombo, Sri Lanka and Oslo, Norway. We build software products because it’s our passion. We are focused, because we understand product engineering is vastly different to bespoke application development. We have an outstanding track record in the successful delivery of over 100 software products globally to Independent Software Vendors (ISVs).

99X Technology

A 99X Technology Publication

Eurocenter is now 99X Technology

CORENA visits 99X Technology

Chat with Mano

Customer Spotlight

CEO’s Award - Employee of the Year 2011

99XT Annual Trip

99X Technology Newsletter March 2012 4th Edition

Eurocenter is now 99X Technology!

CORENA visits 99X Technology

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This strategic rebranding was officially announced at a gala event held at the Waters Edge recently. The official launch coincided with the Company’s Annual Awards Ceremony and Dinner Dance. The evening came alive with colorful and vibrant dance presentations and the name change itself was depicted through a specially choreographed dance item themed the ‘Phoenix Rising’. The Phoenix is a mythical bird said to have the ability to be reborn into a powerful and energetic bird.

Product owner of the CORENA IETP project Tommy Sivertsen and product owner of the CORENA ISPEC project Dag-Ole Olsen visited Colombo last December to participate in workshops targeted at improving productfeatures.

CORENA is a world leader in developing document management and system integration software for thedefense, aerospace, automotive, energy and maritimeindustries. Celebrating more than 20 years in the field, CORENA boasts of a clientele that includes some of the world’s largest defense and aerospace organizations.

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Leadership

Leadership is all about the ability to predict the future in the past and having the skills to inspire others to achieve. Leadership in Enterprise 2.0 is an already challenging mission and in combination with leading the millennial generation it becomes even more daunting.

In the current business context, leadership requires one to be agile and it needs to be present at all levels to deliver results. Today’s great leaders understand that they must be partners with their people and they are also aware that they can no longer lead solely based on positional power, as leadership has nothing to do with the title on their business card.

At 99X Technology our philosophy on leadership is to create leaders without titles, who are self-motivated and take pride in making a difference in delivering value to our stakeholders and taking responsibility to accomplish things without having a title to lead.

Chat with ManoAt 99X Technology our philosophy on leadership is to create leaders without titles.

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Customer Spotlight - System Partner Norge ASFounded in 1994 in Sandefjord Norway, System Partner Norge AS (SPN) exclusively focuses on developing and selling concepts for credit management and invoice/ ledger services. SPN software is used by over 6000 users in 10 countries and the Company also has subsidiaries in Sweden, Switzerland and The Netherlands. 99XT has been working with SPN for the last 6 years in a highly successful partnership.

Given below are some of the Customer’s viewpoints on Sri Lanka as a country as well as a global outsourcing destination.

How do you see SL as an outsourcing destination?

Sri Lanka is a very nice outsourcing destination for us. Even better now that SL is enjoying more peaceful times.

How has 99XT contributed to your product success/ focus?

99XT has always been positive to new ideas and a trusted partner in the development of future products. The fact that 99XT is always looking into new methods and tools helps us build for our customer’s future.

How did the you start the engagement with 99XT and what is the situation of the project today?

SPN and 99XT have a long history which started off when SPN bought a product line developed by 99XT. Today we are no longer working on that specific product line but instead have started with other, newer projects together.

How does 99XT adapt to latest changes/ trends e.g. how have we adapted to Agile?

99XT has been a good partner when it comes to discussing and adopting new changes. That is a skill we hope you will never lose!

Culture and how 99XT fits in as an integral part of their delivery

In hectic times when our customers are waiting for new projects it is good to know that our team at 99XT is always there to go the extra mile in order to meet our deadlines. The morals and work ethics are of the highest standards.

Apart from the project, what do you think of Sri Lanka as a Country?Sri Lanka looks a great place! In these, more peaceful times it would be great to come and visit 99XT on location!

The SPN Team members with two of 99XT’s team members in Norway

Isuru Senadheera was presented with the coveted CEO’s Award for the year 2011. In addition being an outstanding Senior Software Engineer, Isuru adds a lot of additional value to 99X Technology as a significant contributor in many of the Company’s key initiatives.

He is also an active social worker with the Leo movement and was recently awarded as the Most Outstanding Leo Executive of Sri Lanka. Isuru’s success story is an ideal example for the effective balancing of one’s work life and personal life.

CEO’s Award - Employee of the Year 2011

99XT Innovation - Build Sentry System

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99XT Visit to University of Peradeniya

The 99XT Build Sentry is a novel method of monitoring the build status of the Software we develop. Especially when large distributed teams are engaged in software development, the possibility of build breaks could increase. When this happens, quick attention is required to prevent build delays and propagation of errors among other team members/systems.

The 99XT Build Sentry is designed and developed to trigger visual and audible alerts when a build breaks in the code branch that is being monitored. The pilot build alert system was developed for a Java project which was developed by a distributed team using Jenkins as the continuous build integration system.

A tool called “Hudson Tray Tracker” was used to receive notifications to the desktop. Events generated by this tool were used to trigger a windows driver application which could send signals through a USB port. A control circuit attachedto the USB port was used to control Blue and Red lights and a siren depending on the build signal.

Computer Engineering Students from the University of Peradeniya were treated to insights on the fascinating world of Agile and Scrum Based methodologies on 11th of February 2012, when a team of 99Xians conducted a highly interactive and important workshop titled ‘Agile Scrum Workshop for Computer Engineers’. The Workshop was highly successful with all participants actively joining in the discussions and activities.

Process - 99X Technology & SecurityWith the increase of information security demands, 99X Technology decided to follow the ISO 27001:2005 standard to protect company and customer data by creating the base for its new security offering. In 2011, 99X Technology found an opportunity to diversify our business in to IT data security.

As a part of this new initiative, the company competed at the “Hacking Challenge 2011” organized by Sri Lanka CERT. Our team members Hiran Silva, Gayan Jayatissa and Dilan Warnakulasooriya were the proud winners of this event.

From left to right - Hiran Silva, Lal Dias - COO Sri Lanka CERT, Ranjith Siyambalapitiya - Hon. Minister of Telecommunication and IT, Gayan Jayatissa and Dilan Warnakulasooriya

Tech Talk

Formation and successive-introduction of better products or improvising on the original to achieve a more productive outcome through a well-managed process for a significant competitive advantage of the business growth could be simply termed as product innovation. It is essentially supported by many ingredients in which the Next-Generation Technologies play a vital and direct-influencing role.

Defining an innovation process, maintaining its transparency, introducing more collaborative SE-process, research/migration with Next-Gen technologies/platforms, being compliant with latest social media trends etc. would be ultimate challenges for a typical organization working on product innovations. It has been proven that the support of Next-Gen technologies makes a higher contribution to product innovation, not only in terms of makingproducts more prolific and high in performance, but making the whole chain very cost-effective in theirdevelopment/maintenance etc. Thus, adding value for product owners.

Technologies are being enhanced and expanded as we speak and “how to re-innovate technologies to gain the best outcome from current products” is constantly being addressed. Cloud computing platforms, scripting based RAD stacks, platform independent software frameworks, context-aware mobile computing, Next-Gen web etc., which maximize the performance and scalability are the latest hits in the industry that have provided positive solutions for the above mentioned challenges. Thus, one of the major intentions behind all these Next-Gen Technologies has been to innovate the next chain of product(s) with the advantages derived from the technologies or/and to power the process of product re-innovation to yield the maximum compared to what is being gained currently.

Next-Gen social technologies, for example, have been the latest trend that could possibly be the next showground to drive product innovations as it is capable of producing social knowledge and intellect on demand. High usage of social media with intended business purposes, listening to social web for required social intelligence/capturing new ideas and social media injections/integrations are some of the proven methods that pave the way for sustainable product innovations within any context. The series of rich and incredibly supportive social media tools, on the other hand, have made the tale of social and product innovations much easier than ever before.

With this exponential competition, don’t wait for the best future-technology to drive your current product innovations, instead, go for the best innovation with the best technologies available today. That would certainly be the way to be the best among the Next-Gen technologies as well.

“Every generation’s breakthroughs are proven false by the next generation’s technology.”- DAN BROWN

The same goes for Product Innovation.

http://dhammikamx.blogspot.com http://twitter.com/#!/dhammikamx

Next-Gen Technologies for Product Innovation

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Associate Tech LeadBy Dhammika Sriyananda

How ‘IT’ Changed My Life

Early lifeAyani studied at Musaeus College, Colombo and pursued Arts Subjects for her A/Ls. “Many people advised me against doing Arts and instead wanted me to follow Science or Mathematics streams but I always wanted to do something that I was interested in, rather than considering the opinion of others. I took up the challenge” says Ayani. During her school days, she was appointed as a senior prefect and won several Tennis championships. She was selected to the Arts Faculty of the University of Colombo and while studying for the Arts degree, she was also interested in learning IT and decided to pursue her dream at SLIIT. She not only dared to achieve her dream, but in doing so Ayani also received the highest GPA from her batch! Not bad for someone who started off as an arts student eh?

Life at 99XBefore joining, 99X Technology, Ayani served Virtusa for one and half years as an Associate Software Engineer. “I always believe that a company should have a friendly culture and an informal working environment in order to obtain the best from its employees.” says Ayani. “99X Technology had all these capabilities and the way in which a wide range of technologies were used in product development really attracted me to this Company”.

Being a hard working and friendly person, Ayani quickly built excellent working relationships with her customers as well as her fellow work colleagues. Her efforts and dedication were well rewarded as Ayani was honoured with the CEO’s award for the Most Outstanding Employee of the Year in 2010.

In addition to her work, Ayani has also actively participated in Cricket tournaments, Table Tennis Tournaments and Toastmaster sessions as well as many other technical and non-technical training programs organized by the Company.

During her spare time, Ayani enjoys watching movies, playing table tennis and travelling. Her advice to the younger generation is, “People might be of the opinion that someone needs to have a mathematical background to be in the IT industry. It doesn’t matter where you come from, but what really matters is how much you can contribute to theindustry.”

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Different people will have different views, but trust yourself, and accept the challenge. Luck will be on your side.

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From being an Arts Student to being an ace IT graduate and then an outstanding Senior Software Engineer working with overseas customers, this is ‘How IT Changed Ayani Gamage’s life’.

Senior Software EngineerAyani Gamage

The Colombo Agile Camp was successfully worked off in February with the participation of over 50 top practitioners of the Agile methodology in Sri Lanka. The programme was a highly interactive and interesting one with many industry based scenarios and issues being addressed in an open forum. The guest speaker for the event was Christian Willoch, the Chief Information Officer of Xtra Personell, Norway having over 15 years of industry experience, with a special focus on process analysis, systems and infrastructure strategy.

The event organisers reached out to Sri Lankan IT professionals through social media such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn and more than 500 IT professionals expressed their willingness to attend the event. Out of this, 40 of the very best were chosen to participate at the event free of charge, while nearly 100 others watched the live streaming of the programme via the internet.

Colombo Agile Camp 2012

99XT Annual Trip

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Trincomalee

Trincomalee is a port city in Sri Lanka located on the east coast of the island, about 265 km away from Colombo. Trincomalee’s natural deep-water harbour has attracted world-famous seafarers like Marco Polo, Ptolemy and Sea Traders from China and East Asia since ancient times while it has also been a sea port of great strategic importance since the days of the ancient Sri Lankan Kings. ‘Trinco’ as it is most commonly know, boast some of the best white sand beaches in Asia and is also one of the few places in Sri Lanka ideal for dolphin and whale watching. Some of the popular attractions include the Koneswaram Kovil, Hirigadu Seya (one of the oldest stupa in Sri Lanka) the Kanniya Hot Water Springs, Nilaveli Beach, Pigeon Island, World War II War Cemetery and the Kinniya Bridge - one of the longest bridges in Sri Lanka.

Places to visit in Sri Lanka

During the latter part of last year, 99XT employees and their families went on their annual trip to the picturesque Amaya Hills Hotel in Kandy.

Colombo OfficeLevel 2#65, Walukarama RoadColombo 03, SRI LANKA. Tel: +94 11 4721194-6Fax : +94 11 4721198

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