Porism develops bespoke database systems for Windows and the Web.

Our systems meet diverse requirements ranging from direct sales over the Web, to business administration and production control. All are built with suites of software components that Porism has developed and refined since the business began in 1989. All development work follows our quality assurance procedures, many of which are implemented on this Web site for access by company and client personnel.

We can provide a complete service from outline specification of requirements through to development and on-going support. Alternatively, we can supplement your own in-house expertise providing skills in specialist areas. We employ an open architecture to allow interfaces with other software, for example via Web services.

Many of our systems can be used and administered entirely over the Internet or a client’s intranet. They require no more than a Web browser, such as Internet Explorer or Mozilla, on a user’s computer.

We manage entire Web sites such as the esd family of sites, Good Schools Directory and the National Knowledge Service Metadata Registry. We also integrate seamlessly with existing Web sites (see London Borough of Lambeth).

Our Internet systems can be integrated with existing Web pages on your own servers or hosted and managed entirely by us.

Priorities for our systems are:

• Run time stability
 Reducing the potential for abnormal behaviour by minimising reliance on external factors such as software environment or human intervention
• Usability 
Keeping things simple for the user.
• Sophistication
 Adding power for users capable of exploiting it.
• Low cost
 Avoiding development costs that cannot be justified by timely returns from using our software. Reducing requirements for costly licensing and support.
• Ease of development
 Keeping development quick and error proof. We will not sacrifice other priorities just to simplify a programmer’s life, but we will not build in unnecessary complexity for the sake of using ‘leading edge’ techniques.

More information about Porism and the way we work can be found on our website at www.porism.com