OST Announces National App Dev Partnership
GRAND RAPIDS (WWJ) -- Grand Rapids-based Open Systems Technologies announced Monday it had been named one of only 20 premier partners with San Francisco-based Xamarin, a company whose technology allows developers to build fully native mobile apps across all major device platforms using the computer language C#.
The partnership is the first in Michigan for Xamarin.
With Xamarin, businesses can use existing in-house .Net developer skills, C# code and tools to build apps that share up to 90 percent of their source code across device platforms, creating native apps for multiple platforms in a fraction of the time of other technologies.
"As a Premier Consulting Partner, we are excited to have OST's first-hand experience in developing great apps for their clients with Xamarin," stated Erik Polzin, senior partner manager at Xamarin. "In addition, we look forward to working with OST to help their vast client portfolio succeed in the mobile era."
OST's Application Development Practice has been recognized as one of the largest App Dev teams in Michigan for the past four years with annual revenues of $9 million and a roster of 30 full-time developers as well as 50 full-time contractors.
"OST has grown over the years due to its commitment to providing a creative, fun, family-first culture and state-of-the-art work environment that's lead us to where we are today," says Brian Anderson, OST's business development manager for application development. "In addition, we continually leverage the mind power of each member of our team to gather input on our technological direction. The partnership with Xamarin allows us to help our clients take advantage of consumer and internal facing cross-platform, fully native mobile apps. The mobile revolution is just starting and this partnership enables OST to help our clients get the maximum benefit with the lowest cost when targeting apps to multiple mobile platforms."
The opportunity comes at an ideal time for several OST clients, including Johnson Controls Inc., a major client of OST, and the first of many to benefit from the new platform.
"OST is a partner in the truest sense," says Jeff Kwiatkowski, global application solutions architect at Johnson Controls. "They really embrace the need to explore new platforms in order to continue to delight their clients. With the rapid deployment of new technologies we are more dependent on partners like OST to understand our business needs and those of our customers."
With offices in Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor, Detroit, Minneapolis and London, England, OST has grown from 49 to 120 employees plus an additional 70 full-time contractors since June 2010. For the company's most recent fiscla year, April 2012 to March 2013, revenue was $80 million.
OST has been focused on providing IT infrastructure services and products for more than 15 years. In addition OST offers security services, custom application development services, managed services, and business process services.
