Captive team provides a best of both worlds approach to the engaging an external software developer according to the Australian company MXL whose newest software for the global education market was completed in Bali by a systems engineering team employed at Mitrais.

MXL enjoys a significant cost advantage of a minimum of 33 percent over other methods of engaging contracted development skills, such as fixed price or time and materials.

Nevertheless the company retains control of the eMinerva Enterprise Schools software with its own systems architect dictating the design, product features and functions. Additionally the application specific knowledge remains “on tap” to MXL for further development and product maintenance after the initial project to enhance the software.

Mitrais project manager Made Setiadi explains that the brief for the eMinerva project was to enhance, implement and maintain this leading enterprise student information system using up to date technology that would allow faster access, better performance and an improved look and feel.

eMinerva Enterprise Schools is the leading enterprise student information system for the K12 environment. Designed from the ground up to scale and work within a multi-school environment, eMinerva allows student and related information to be managed and shared appropriately across schools in small or large organisations.

Mitrais software engineers used .NET 3.5 framework, the SRRS reporting tool and Teleric Skin to modify and upgrade the application user interface.

While Captive team offers a significant cost advantage over other ways of contracting software development, MXL was primarily interested in addressing a huge volume of work in-house with existing staff. It did not want to hire more local staff to see it over the peak of the workload.

MXL selected Mitrais following an exhaustive interview process in which it confirmed software engineers with the appropriate skills were immediately available and that Mitrais had a well-proven track record of working with Australian software companies.

Mr Setiadi that MXL had engaged Mitrais after experiencing less than satisfactory outcomes in earlier projects to contract software development to the Philippines and India.

MXL is a 10 year old company and a member of a listed group of companies Entellect Solutions Ltd. From a head office in Sydney, MXL operates globally through partners in the UK, Europe, Australasia, South East Asia, Latin America and CIS countries (former USSR).