Boldon James Development Services

Boldon James is a specialist software development house with over 20 years experience on Unix and Microsoft Windows platforms. We have over 40 U.K. based technical staff in the Development and Support Groups with over 400 man years experience, mainly in Microsoft Office, Exchange Server, Instant Messaging and various communications protocols.

Although our sector expertise is largely Defence, since 2003 we have evolved a considerable body of knowledge around Public Security requirements, driven by a key role in a current UK Homeland Security project sponsored by key central government and intelligence departments. Our expertise is such that both Microsoft and Hewlett Packard offer key specialist functions developed by Boldon James on their behalves as part of their standard product offerings, ie. LDAP functions in Exchange Server and Outlook Web Access components on HP’s Standard PC build.

Our History

Boldon James’ expertise dates back to the mid 1980’s and is tightly linked to the growth of Open Systems (OSI) and the need to link them to legacy environments over various international protocols. This Europe-wide mainframe-server-PC connectivity business, albeit still a strong revenue generator, maintains a very low development overhead.

During the early 1990’s our business steadily expanded into OSI X.400/X.500 messaging solutions, driven by requirements from our larger government customers - especially those in Defence, ie. NATO and CCEB nations – to extend Microsoft platforms to support interoperability standards and requirements for formal messaging. The company now provides a highly developed set of software products and components for the generic Defence & Public Security marketplace, which are almost always complemented by project based modifications to meet strict requirements.

Core Areas

The development groups core areas include:

Microsoft Office - Boldon James has been developing and extending the MS Outlook Office platforms since 1996. Key skills include VBscript and C/C++ programming combined with the MS technologies and interfaces such as Outlook Object Model and MAPI. Our programming language expertise includes: C/C++, MS MFC, C#, ASP.NET, VB, JavaScript & COM/DCOM.

Microsoft Exchange Server - As an integral part of the BJ messaging solutions we extend the Exchange server platform in a number of ways:

Construction of applications on top of the Exchange Gateway through the SDK/GDK using MAPI and C++ technologies.
Web client extensions – extending Outlook Web Access (OWA) to support messaging extensions using ASP.NET and JavaScript programming technologies to improve the experience of the ‘advanced’ messaging user.
Instant Messaging and Live Communications server (IM & LCS)
Extending MS LCS server to provide an enhanced IM experience, controlling user access and chat sessions. Web based IM client developed using AJAX & ASP.NET.

Communications Protocols & Standards - The business was founded on OSI standards implementations during the 1980’s and the challenges within distributed computing environments. We still maintain strong competencies in OSI Transport and network standards including ISO8072/8073/8473/9542. With a transition into messaging the above were extended to various OSI and CCITT/ITU X.400 and X.500 series standards latterly supplemented with a variety of Allied and Nato Military messaging protocol definitions including ACP123, ACP120, ACP142, ACP145, and STANAG4406.

Unix Platforms - Boldon James has a wide range of Unix application & device driver (LAN Ethernet & WAN X.25) development skills, plus porting expertise across the following:

Solaris
HP
AIX
Data General
SCO
Linux
NCR
AT&T
UnixWare.

Case Studies

A selection of high profile product development projects follow:

DMS V1/V2 - US Department of Defense (DoD) Messaging System - Since 1996, to date, Boldon James have developed, supported and enhanced a series of MS Outlook Military Messaging extensions to support Lockheed Martin Federal Systems deliver a High Grade military messaging system to the US DoD. This is a contract placed directly to BJ from the Microsoft Corporation in Seattle, implementing a series of C++ components supporting X.500 DAP, ACP123, ACP120 and MSP4 secure messaging standards.

This contract includes a ‘US DoD site license’ for the Boldon James Outlook MasterkeyPlus LDAP address book product, approximating 1 million seats.

DMS/CMS V3 - In 2004 Boldon James were contracted by Microsoft to extend the DMS programme to provide a CMS (Collaborative Messaging Capability) to take the messaging platform forward and extend it into the tactical arenas, containing several new capabilities:

Web Clients based on Exchange OWA extensions.
Exchange Domain fortezza gateway, implementing ACP120 on the server to reduce Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of the DMS system and associated crypto hardware devices.
A developed ‘SAFEagent’ capability, interfacing between the High Grade messaging system and a number of specialist products to support additional handling services such as message profiling and archiving.

UK MoD (DII/C) - A STANAG 4406 standards based MMHS solution provided through Fujitsu Defence incorporating the SAFEmail messaging client.

UK Navy - Through EDS we have supplied components for a modern replacement for the Royal Navy messaging system based on MS messaging platforms - Outlook and Exchange - with the addition of Boldon James SAFEmail and Military Draft and Release products.

UK MOD - Boldon James have provided our messaging products into a number of MoD projects.

UK Government - Since 1993 Boldon James have been the MS Outlook Messaging client of choice for parts of central government with SAFEmail and its predecessor products (Enterprise Mail V3 and V4) providing military messaging and formal labelled messaging capabilities.

Further Information

If you require further information or have any questions please contact us.