Business managers have a never-ending need for software applications to help them run their business effectively.  IT and Business Managers must decide whether to build each application internally or to purchase an application to fulfill the need.

Each approach has pros and cons.  Building the application internally can result in an application that more closely meets the needs of the business unit.  But there are also risks to this approach.

While the business unit has the need now for the application, IT staffs may not be able to start development until well into the future, and actual development time can take months or even years to complete.  Often key features are pulled out in the interest of time, thereby reducing the return on investment of the project.  Furthermore, In-house developed applications tend to be less flexible to changing business needs, which require IT staffs to spend a significant amount of time enhancing existing applications.

Packaged applications, on the other hand, can deliver general functionality, with less defects more quickly.  But since it is rare for the packaged solution to be exactly what you need, significant customizations must be made,  which can drastically lengthen project timelines and costs.  As a result, these applications can be hard to upgrade without costly and time consuming consulting engagements. 

Velox represents a new class of Java-Based enterprise application development frameworks that provides the best of breed infrastructure code removing the effort involved in an organization “rolling their own” and allowing a team to jump right in to adding value versus building an infrastructure. Velox thereby bridges the build versus buy decision by incorporating the best attributes of both, while avoiding their drawbacks.  Velox allows users to meet their specific business needs, while enabling rapid development and delivery of the application ensuring a positive return on investment.

Many businesses define their applications as managing the flow of information, also known as a business process.  The definition of exactly what a business process is in terms of a software application are numerous and diverse.  A Velox application itself can be said to implement a business process when a procedure is written (on paper) to outline the particular steps that information is to be entered, processed, analyzed, updated and disseminated within the application.

Velox Technology Partners recognized the need for businesses to control certain business processes in a clear way for end users to ensure that the processes are followed, and that the information integrity is confirmed and maintained at each step of the process.  For this purpose, the Velox Business Process Engine (BPE) was created.

The BPE can be considered as a layer on top of the Velox framework that enables the rapid creation of detailed business processes.  The BPE follows on the general thesis of Velox Technology partners by providing a highly functional business process engine that enables the rapid implementation of business processes with no programming, but also allows for powerful extensions to the processes via the Java plug-in API.