What's the future of software development? It's difficult call. Traditionally, software developers would release a new application every 9-12 months, with three or four core new features. It became silly. I remember Macromedia used to be over at our offices demonstrating the new version of Dreamweaver every 9 or so months. The next stage was to move to a yearly license, where you pay a subscription to 'rent' your software. The key advantage is that you get all upgrades within this period, free of charge.
The new model is what they describe as a 'cloud' where you software is hosted on a remote server and you access through your web browser. Luckily, Adobe Air now enables software developers to produce a desktop client version of a browser-based application, but it still seems to be the way we're moving forward with our software.
Lovely Charts is no exception. This is an online business tool that you can control from your web browser. There's a free version that will enable you to create one business diagram. This means you could sit on the train on a morning and build a proposed organisation chart from your laptop and have it finished by the time you reach the office.
Lovely Charts enables you to draft up just about any kind of formal business diagram, from wireframes, network charts through to organisational charts and more.
Lovely Charts link.
27 Feb 2009
