Geonetics

Geonetics, a boutique software firm in Boston with about twenty years of experience, builds custom software. It focuses on enterprise software, GIS integration, and legacy system and data integration. Its work starts with business analysts who help clients define their requirements, followed by software architects who design a system that can be maintained and changed over time.

Platforms, languages and integration

Geonetics builds mobile, web and desktop software and has experience across major development platforms, including Java, .NET, Python and PHP. Its enterprise and mobile solutions follow open standards and service-oriented approaches. Supporting technologies it uses include an enterprise service bus, reporting tools, relational databases and portal frameworks such as Microsoft SharePoint. The firm chooses among these according to what each system requires.

Iterative development in review cycles

The firm builds software in iterations, through a series of development and review cycles. It argues that many business and data environments are too complex to model and document from the top down, and that an iterative approach gives the strongest outcome in the shortest time and at the lowest cost. Its experience lets it shorten these cycles and lower the overall risk of a project. The firm says its personal approach to delivery is an alternative to hiring a developer for a fixed task, and that the whole team becomes part of the solution a client is trying to reach.

Map data and legacy data work

Map data and GIS integration adds mapping and spatial data to existing business systems. Enterprise web data management tools give organizations a way to handle their data through the web. Data and legacy system integration connects older systems to newer ones, so that information held in the old system can still be used.

Recent public transport and roads projects

Among its recent projects are two public-sector systems: one manages real estate for the MBTA, and the other is a MassDOT inventory of curb ramps, both transport bodies in Massachusetts. Both sit within the GIS and data integration work the firm describes as its core, and both show its method of building a system around the way the agency's data is held.