For years, Microsoft has been heavily contributing towards the evolution of software development to what it is today; an ever-expanding industry that molds new technologies into innovative digital solutions. The tech giant recently made news after leveling up their ERP and CRM game by launching the Dynamics 365 Mobile.
 

Dynamics 365 App

 
The Dynamics 365 Mobile packs powerful analytics capabilities and would come in real handy for enterprises to simplify, streamline, and automate most of their business processes. With the app, users will have on-the-go access to various CRM functionalities that enable them to handle their activities quickly and efficiently.

The app’s features allow them to track and respond to queries, and also interact with customers from anywhere at any time. A good mobile experience is what customers prefer in this age, as people access the internet more via mobile devices today than desktops. Improved business productivity and competitive advantages are added benefits of Dynamics 365 mobile.
 

Features that would make a difference

• Personalized Action Hub: One great feature of Dynamics 365 app is that it allows users to create a personalized mobile workspace. Upon launch, the app’s Action Hub would display features that enable users to perform their routine tasks faster. The action hub features include one to key in new records, receive notifications through smart cards, pin items on home screen for easy access etc.
• Great UI: The new UI allows switching between multiple business modules seamlessly. Users generally found it quite challenging to switch between modules when using CRMs. Dynamics 365 app’s interface design makes it seamless and consistent across various devices, while also integrating with other Microsoft products including Office 365 and SharePoint.
• AI-driven Relationship Assistant: AI can do wonders for modern businesses, and Microsoft knows that which is why Dynamics 365 mobile comes with an AI-driven Relationship Assistant that allows users to track and log all user activities and customer interactions for data analysis, action card recommendations, and of course for informed decision-making.
• Offline Data Synchronization: Connectivity issues may cause problems when it comes to syncing data. But with Dynamics 365 app, this is no big deal. The app allows creating and storing notes even when offline, and syncs the data in the background when the connection is back online.
• Visual Overhaul: Not necessarily a feature, but the overall visual appeal of the Dynamics 365 app grants a new feel altogether. The app shows every important information in a single screen with a vibrant layout. The dashboard is much more organized and compact now, and users won’t have to navigate much to access the data they need. It’s also easier to track progress in the forms.

Conclusion

 
Modern day CRM systems are mandatorily required to help businesses stay connected to their customers while on the move. Dynamics 365 mobile does just that, allowing customers to reach out to businesses right from their mobile devices at any time, and vice versa. For the business, the app improves employee efficiency with an AI-powered virtual relationship assistant, configurable dashboards, and offline syncing capabilities. Seems like the mobile CRM is on its way to being one of the most sought out Microsoft technology solutions in the market.

It is not that difficult to find comparisons between ASP.NET and PHP in the internet. As a matter of fact, it’s all over the internet with two factions defending both these technologies and attempting to put down the other.  The real question should be where these technologies are best suited rather than which one comes out on top. Both ASP.NET development services and PHP development services enjoy great demand in the market today. Let’s explore the core features of both languages.
 

Microsoft ASP.NET

 
The development languages for the open source ASP.NET includes VB.NET, C#, C#.NET, and F#, and uses tools like Visual Studio and Mono to develop high performance websites. The server OS is of course Microsoft Windows, and it shares a syntax similar to VB. Despite being open source, ASP.NET isn’t technically free as there are quite a few associated costs.
 

PHP

 
A full open source scripting language, PHP leverages tools like PhpStorm, NetBeans, and various other editors. It is compatible with servers running on Linux, mac, or Windows, and comes with a syntax similar to C and C++ languages. PHP is free to use, and a large community backing it with technical support.
 

Choosing between ASP.NET and PHP

 
To reach a conclusion, it’s better to compare the most important aspects of both ASP.NET and PHP.

Scalability

Considering the fact that the scalability of a web application depends on the expertise of the programmers, the coding standards, the development framework, and programming practices and guidelines, both PHP and ASP.NET are fully capable of delivering highly scalable web applications.

Performance

There is a wrong notion that the performance and speed of a website or web app depends on the platform. PHP sites and ASP.NET sites rival each other when it comes to performance as both are capable of running routine processes and delivering desired results quickly.

As for the speed, it also depends on various other factors like database server, end-user’s computer hardware power and bandwidth. For the application to possess considerable speed, the code should be written well and the architecture should be implemented the right way.

Support

PHP is slightly ahead when it comes to support, owing to the larger pool of developers and an ever-growing community. ASP.NET is not far behind however as Microsoft invests a lot in supporting most of its technologies for website and software development, and the community is as helpful as the ASP.NET community. For developers with technical queries, the PHP community would still respond faster owing to its sheer volume of dedicated developers.

Cost

Despite the open source license, ASP.NET is still a Microsoft product and there are obviously going to be associated costs. PHP, however, is completely free. ASP.NET requires Windows OS running on the machine, which was considered to be more expensive than using the open source Linux OS which PHP supports. However, Microsoft’s recently made Windows hosting much less costly – now almost equivalent to the expense of Linux hosting.

But when it comes to professional web development, ASP.NET requires Visual Studio. Though a free version called VS Express is available for beginners, the IDE won’t cut it for professional development of sophisticated web applications. PHP, on the other hand, supports a variety of great IDEs – both free and paid.

Suitability

While PHP is ideal for smaller business websites, billing websites, and startups, ASP.NET is what companies rely on for enterprise-level websites and ERP apps. ASP.NET can also be used to build enterprise-class CRM systems, while PHP can be used for less complex CRMs.
 

Conclusion

 
All these points make choosing between the two quite challenging. But ultimately, a developing a good product cost-effectively depends on the development team’s strengths. If your developers are experts in the most popular Microsoft Technology, ASP.NET development would certainly be cost effective. Its rival, PHP, is not a slouch either provided the suitability of the application language is analyzed beforehand.

Microsoft recently announced that they are working on the next version of their signature IDE, Visual Studio which could bring major changes to software development. Reportedly, the tech giant is still in the early planning phase for the next Visual Studio tool suite release, named Visual Studio 2019. The earliest signs of Visual Studio was spotted at GitHub, which is turn about to be acquired by Microsoft for $7.5 billion in company stock.

John Montgomery, director of program management for Visual Studio at Microsoft, after revealing that Visual Studio 2019 is in the works in his blog post, also added that we will be seeing many indicators of the company laying the foundation for the latest Visual Studio suite in Github, where their Developer Tools team spent a lot of time in.
 

Sneak peek

 
Visual Studio 2017 was launched in March 2017, which gave rise to a speculation that Visual Studio 2019 would be released in early 2019. However, the company did not reveal anything on the release, but promised to say more in the coming months.

John Montgomery’s blog post still provided a couple of goals for Microsoft’s new Visual Studio release. The company intends to release Visual Studio 2019 faster, with a goal of making the IDE suite more reliable and effective for teams. Visual Studio 2019 is also expected to be easier to use with a short learning curve.

The director also added that we can expect better refactorings and navigation, in addition to a more capable debugger and faster solutions loads and builds. The company would also be exploring the collaboration aspect of the next version, leveraging connected capabilities like Live Share to facilitate real-time collaboration. Cloud scenarios are also expected to be more seamless.

Another intriguing reveal was Microsoft’s willingness to improve team productivity by having Visual Studio utilize Azure to deliver AI-driven assistance to the IDE. Seemingly, other Microsoft technology solutions will also be getting updates to leverage AI, considering the fact that the company seems to be willing to invest in hot trends.
 

Where they are headed

 
Because they specifically mentioned Visual Studio’s Live Share feature, we can expect the company to improve the feature. Live Share was announced in November last year, and quickly became popular for its co-authoring capabilities i.e. enabling developers to work together on the same code, much similar to the edit capabilities of a few Office 365 applications. Essentially, the company wants their new Visual Studio to facilitate real-time collaboration effectively.

Aside from its goals for the IDE suite, Microsoft expansion plans also seems promising since their announcement of the GitHub acquisition earlier this month. It was announced by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who also added that GitHub will remain an open platform and developers would still be able to extend it. Developers would be able to use the languages, operating systems, and tools of their choice for their projects, and deploy the code on any cloud and any device.

We will be seeing Microsoft’s IntelliCode, an AI-powered assistance for cloud scenarios in Visual Studio 2019. When introduced during Microsoft’s Build 2018 Developers Conference in May, IntelliCode was applauded. The AI-driven program learns over time and streamlines formatting while suggesting APIs and recommendations to avoid errors. The company is leaning on Azure to train IntelliCode and get it functioning in Visual Studio 2019.

The company also revealed that it took about a whopping 2000 high quality GitHub repositories to train IntelliCode’s machine learning model and ensure that it sticks to best practices.
 

Conclusion

 
Although the company didn’t give out any info on the release of the new Visual Studio version, they certainly made it clear that the path they are taking would benefit every Application Management services company leveraging their technologies. Montgomery also teased an announcement in the next few months. Developers who participated in the Visual Studio 2017 Preview would likely be the first to get information on the release of the first beta version of Visual Studio 2019.

In the last couple of years, software development underwent many evolutions in terms of new methodologies, approaches, development tools, and even the mindset of the people using the tools. Due to new efficient approaches to development and users’ uncompromising expectations to quality assurance, testing also gained almost equal importance as development.

When it comes to software testing, there has been a significant increase in the number and variety of testing tools with multiple features and functionalities, which include both open source and proprietary tools. Due to the change, or rather ‘advancements’, in testing trends, testers are now considered as information brokers. They also have to be updated on emerging as well as modern mainstream technologies to design effective test strategies.

All of these facts emphasize the influence of technologies on various industries, and the influence will persist as long as there are advancements in technologies. If you look at a big-picture view, you would notice new technologies gradually shaping up the future of software testing. Here are 4 such technologies that will impact software testing and transform it in the near future.
 

Artificial Intelligence

 
AI, being the new buzzword, is at the top of almost every list of influential modern-day technologies. Thanks to AI, self-driving cars and intelligent digital home assistants are not sci-fi concepts anymore. They are today’s reality. AI’s influence spread across several sectors including finance, health care, travel & transport, and, of course, software testing.

However, as of now, the AI in software testing is still in its infancy. Only a very few tools that use AI/Machine Learning technologies are considered reliable for authoring and executing functional testing, end-to-end testing, and regression testing. AI finds its use primarily in test automation associated with UI. The algorithm evolves by learning from the test cases created by users, eventually becoming capable of creating test cases on its own adhering to specific preset conditions. AI algorithms can also track changes in the code made by developers which may affect test cases that were already performed prior to the changes. This means the tester won’t have to spend maintenance time on test scripts.
 

DevOps

 
The DevOps approach promoted collaboration between the software development and operations team, thus ensuring constant automation and monitoring throughout the software development lifecycle (SDLC). DevOps is likely to bring major changes to software testing in the coming days.

For instance, DevOps may require the QA tasks to be aligned to ensure a hassle-free Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery cycle. We can also expect QA environments to be standardized in a DevOps ecosystem. However, for DevOps to truly make a difference in testing, automation is the key. Automation and DevOps are quite dependent on each other as one cannot be effective without the other. Considering that fact, we can safely assume that automation will have great value in the future of software testing, more than it has now.
 

IoT

 
Another technology that shares the same spotlight as AI, IoT at present is considered to be very promising. The advent of smart wearables and the concept of smart homes and connected devices give IoT a lot of hype, garnering it major investments from tech behemoths. However, behind the flashy concept lies the sophisticated reality of multiple communications and integrations taking place every second.

The data that IoT devices share are transmitted through the cloud seamlessly in real-time across multiple connected devices and apps. The notification should reach the right user at the right time as well. Testing such sophisticated functionalities can be very challenging for testers. Because IoT introduces such complexity, it’s expected that software testing will adapt to meet the challenges with further evolutions that focus more on integration testing.
 

QAaaS

 
QA as a Service is not anything new, and has been around for the past couple of years, enabling companies (medium-large sized businesses) to meet their software testing needs effectively. Not all companies that provide enterprise application services offer QAaaS solutions. But those that do can make various aspects of the testing process much easier.

QAaaS providers offer in-depth test reporting features with logs, screenshots, and even video logs. They also facilitate easier integration with Continuous Integration systems and provide automation tools to reduce coding time. QAaaS providers can also handle the maintenance of servers that run automated tests so that team members would be able to focus more on critical testing tasks.

Owing to the many benefits of the service, QAaaS could be standardized very soon. The service is not yet accessible to businesses of all sizes. However, we can expect it to be much more affordable and refined with better offerings in the near future.
 

Conclusion

 
Software testing is expected to get big changes starting this year. It’s just a matter of time as other technologies advance to being more affordable and accessible to all kinds of businesses. Even under such positive conditions, the mindset of the testers need to change as well, in order to accept and adapt to using better technologies to ensure quality.

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Apple’s Objective C has got rather old now, after a run that spanned roughly 3 decades. The tech giant, a few years back, decided to change things for the better with a new programming language. The language got a major upgrade at WWDC 2015, and its version 2.2 was, surprisingly, made open source under the Apache License 2.0. Going by the name Swift, the language didn’t gain much momentum…till now.

Though it didn’t create much of a big impression at first, Swift did prove useful for macOS X and iOS application development. Its compatibility with existing Objective-C libraries is an added benefit, making it a great option for developers who already know their way around Objective-C.

That said, Swift is expected to make a major comeback soon with its clever features, design elements, and further upgrades. It could be the most wanted skill in software development soon, if Apple continues to improve it at a rapid pace.

Here’s why it’s time for iOS developers to start picking up Swift.
 

It’s easy to learn

 
Swift’s syntax is simple enough to rival Python, and the language was designed to be easy to use. Even while learning, developers would be able to build apps faster than they would be able to when learning a different platform. The short learning curve also seems to have got many developers interested in the language over the years.
 

It’s quite fast

 
There are claims that codes built with Swift is as fast as compiled C codes. The language facilitates a more responsive development environment with Apple claiming that Swift’s search algorithms is up to 2.6 times faster than Objective-C, and 8.4 times faster than Python 2.7. The language also provides real-time feedback and enables developers to seamlessly integrate it with existing Objective-C code.
 

Devs can tinker with it

 
In order to make the language approachable and more appealing to developers, Apple made available a lot of learning resources and a cool app called Swift Playgrounds. The developers can experiment with Swift and learn the concepts behind it quickly with the Playgrounds app.
 

It’s safe

 
Apple made no compromises when it comes to Swift’s security. When working with the language, unsafe code is less likely to present itself. The developers can ensure tight security in apps developed with Swift by using modern programming conventions.
 

It could be the go-to language of the near future for Apple development

 
Apple is successful, and one of the biggest companies in the world. The company has reportedly handed over more than $15 billion to developers in the US alone since the App Store was launched. For developers, this makes sense to support the platforms the company prefers, which include iOS, tvOS, macOS etc.

Swift would eventually be an important factor when it comes to application development for all these platforms, considering the effort Apple takes to improve and refine the language. Because of its open source nature, it’s also expected to contribute to the growth of open source development services sector.
 

Conclusion

 
It’s Apple’s commitment to Swift which makes it appealing. It’s reached version 4.1, and v.5 is already under development. Apple seems to be refining the language to make it even more impressive, despite its humble beginning. Swift has certainly become one of the most popular open source technologies today since its release in 2014. It could potentially change the face of iOS/macOS development, which is why developers shouldn’t turn a blind eye to Swift.