Navigating the Uncharted
The entire world just experienced utmost football fever with FIFA World Cup. Technology provided an unparalleled experience, as fans could watch the games anywhere, on any device, and enjoy superb video quality where 5G networks were available. While I was watching the scintillating final between Argentina and France, my mind went back to 2009 when SpringCT built the world's first commercial live streaming mobile app, albeit, for American Football. The app was built for Blackberry, the most popular smartphones of those days. The challenges were enormous!
Very slow wireless networks, devices with low processing power, small memory footprint, virtually non-existent OS support for media streaming and online decoding, and the best screen resolution of 640x480! Our team stumbled on many occasions and even worried about feasibility of what we were trying to achieve. We worked days and nights, without losing hope, to make it work in time for the NFL playoffs. The app received phenomenal response as it provided a never before opportunity of following NFL games on the go. This outcome was indeed exciting, making the entire journey worthwhile!
The times have changed. Building a live streaming apps is absolutely not a challenge now. In search of the excitement, SpringCT moved on to newer technologies time and again, currently exploring emerging technologies like Extended Reality and Digital Human. Over the past decade and a half, SpringCT has developed outstanding expertise in building cutting edge products, especially in our focus verticals of digital media, collaboration, digital health, IoT and fintech
Building a product using emerging technologies comes with many challenges:
Lack of expertise: Emerging technologies are often in the early stages of development and do not have a large pool of qualified professionals with technology expertise. This makes it difficult to find and hire team members with the necessary skills and experience. Ability of exploration and quick learning becomes the key
Limited documentation: Emerging technologies usually have limited documentation and support available, which makes it difficult for team members to learn and implement the technology quickly. Regular experience of working with open-source projects and capturing required information comes handy.
Compatibility issues: Emerging technologies may not be fully compatible with other technologies or systems that the product needs to integrate with. Compatibility issues need to be anticipated well in advance to reduce surprises and unplanned effort.
Changing technology landscape: The technology landscape is constantly evolving, and emerging technologies can quickly get replaced by newer technologies. Special design considerations are required to build a product that will stay relevant over time.
Limited track record: Emerging technologies don't yet have a proven track record of success or a large-scale usage. This makes it difficult at times to justify the resources and time required to build a product using the technology
Building products using emerging technologies is never easy, but with the experience of developing hundreds of cutting-edge products over the last 15 years, SpringCT has built a strong team and established practices that make the outcomes far more predictable. Predictable, not just in terms of feasibility, but also with respect to the time and cost of development.