TEAM International partners with Lulu Enterprises, Inc to support publishing on demand business.

The Client
Lulu is an online publishing company, with a plan to disrupt the traditional publishing industry by allowing the author instead of the publisher to retain 80% of the revenue from the first item printed and distributed.

The Industry
Publishing on demand.

The Challenge and Solution
Lulu approached TEAM to augment their application development capabilities and improve collaboration with printing vendors worldwide. The application utilizes various technologies requiring highly skilled IT professionals with indepth experience in web development (PHP, Java), PostgreSQL and Oracle database.

Project Scope
TEAM international is performing software development and quality assurance for Lulu. The current team is closely integrated with Lulu’s Research Triangle Park development team and collaborates on a number of shared projects that fall into the following categories:
• e-Commerce engine replacement
• Integration with external distribution channels
• Integration and reengineering of interfaces
• Usability Improvements
• Platform Improvements

The Engagement Model
Dedicated Development Center (DDC)

The Challenge
TEAM International consultants are closely integrated with Lulu’s R&D team and communicate using Agile methodologies on a daily basis. Being located on different continents and time zones, Lulu and TEAM managed to set up effective communication using all the contemporary media and shared development infrastructure. The teams work together on design, requirements definition, development and testing on a large number of projects. The e-Commerce Engine Replacement imitative incorporates teams from 3 different organizations, countries and time zones.

Number of Resources
• Developers: 7
• Tester: 5
• PM: 1
Total: 13

Length of Engagement
• DDC since April 2010

Platform/Technology
• Linux RedHat
• Virtual environment
• Java, PHP, Python
• XML, XSLT
• Oracle, PostgreSQL
• Apache, Tomcat
• Selenium

Methodology
• Agile / SCRUM - 2 week sprints
• Daily/weekly project meetings
• Remote access to customer’s development environment / SandBox

Result
Lulu and TEAM enjoy a long term strategic partnership whereby TEMA delivers a high level of service and the breadth and depth of the relationship continues to expand. Lulu plans on expanding the team both in functions performed and quantity of team members in the coming year.

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