Article about mPire in Deccan Herald

Bringing automation in software development
M A Siraj

It could be a major breakthrough. A relatively new information
technology firm in the City, TransIT mPower Labs has come out with a
product mPire that could cut down the time involved in web-based
applications to just about one-tenth of what it usually requires.

Software, as acknowledged, is an automation tool for the industry. But
generating code for the software is in itself a cumbersome process with
huge claims on time and talent. Product mPire’s forte lies in bringing
automation in generating software.

The innovative product reduces the time and cost in coding part of the
software development by 80 and 40 per cent respectively and thereby
enables preparation of high-end applications in minutes. And to boot,
the generated code is completely customisable, free from errors and
compatible with all operating systems and browsers and can be accessed
through PDA or mobiles.

Innovation product mPire developed by innovator M. P. Ahmed Hasan and
team of developers from TransIT mPower, was adjudged a winner in the
recently concluded FICCI — Lockheed Martin (USA) India Innovation Growth
Competition 2008 which saw more than 300 presentations from around the
world.

Says Hasan, it’s a software product based on JAVA technology and
addresses the current challenges of the IT industry which is facing a
shortage of skilled programmers.

In an atmosphere like this, a tool for automatic code writing for
software which could bring down cost by 40 per cent could be a real
boon. With the help of mPire, one input file of 20 lines to the software
generates 8000 lines of code in just three seconds which is rated highly
in the industry.

Says Rama Krishna Prasad, Director of the TransIT, in software industry,
time being money, new product mPire will, beside cutting down manpower
by 80 per cent, will bring speed to the delivery schedules by reducing
the testing time.

The innovation is the brainchild of M. P. Ahmed Hasan, an MS from BITS,
Pilani who was the founder of the TransIT mPower Labs in 2005 as a
product based company focused on innovation.
During the last three years the company has developed over a dozen
high-end portals for companies like ABB, Qatar Airways and Travelocity.
It has partnered with Ionidea and Next Level Enterprise, USA, Liferay
Inc., and Sun Microsystems.

Sun Microsystem has applauded the mPire as “an innovative tool which
does a good job of automating the generation of JSR-168 portlets”.

MindTree Consulting has lauded the innovation in the following words:
“From the first feel, it looks great. I would expect the SaaS (software
as a service) Module.”. Caravel Info Systems says, “It is an excellent
tool for building the basic framework for the enterprise level projects
quickly, thereby reducing the development time.”

With the innovation in hand and patenting process on, TransIT mPower
Labs eyes huge opportunities in the market. Says Director, Marketing
Akbar Ali, the company is looking for just 0.2 per cent of business in
portal server licensing and 0.04 per cent of the market in portal
development in the first year. Currently the two sectors offer $ 1
billion and $ 5 billion business respectively which is shared among
biggies like IBM, BEA, Vignettes and other major IT companies.

But while TransIT may be eyeing big opportunities, the new product has a
social relevance too.

Customers like NGOs who cannot afford expensive software programmes can
benefit from the product and auto-generate their own software and
portals at a minimal cost. Ali says the company has been employing and
training professionals from two and three-tier cities like Shimoga,
Tirunelveli and Ananthapur.

http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/May142008/cyberspace2008051367750.asp