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Case Study 4 - New Tax Credits Project at Microsoft UK

Modernising Government

In 2001/2002 we found ourselves working with Microsoft in Reading. HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs) had awarded the contract to fulfil Gordon Brown's "New Tax Credits" initiative (part of the Modernising Government programme) to EDS (Electronic Data Systems), who had promptly sub-contracted delivery of the associated web portal to Microsoft. At the time, Microsoft was best known for shrink-wrapped desktop applications and operating systems; however, they were able to provide bespoke consultancy and software development via their Solution Developer Centre. As the SDC simply didn't have the level of resource available internally to handle a project of this size within the necessary timescale, they reached out to their partner network. One of their Gold partners, which we had worked with previously, then approached us to see if we would be able to help. For such a high-profile client (and project), the answer was easy.

Microsoft Reading

The primary area of the system in which were involved was the data services layer - used both for storage of data entered via the web portal and for information exchange with EDS. The data itself was that provided by members of the public in relation to their claim for tax credits. Complete Codesmiths were specifically responsible for the bi-directional exchange of data between the web portal and the core system developed by EDS. Due to the high profile of the project, the data transfer solution had to be highly robust and highly performant – these dual criteria drove much of the design.

As much of the data was transferred to/from the SQL Server 2000 database used by the web portal as XML documents, the company's extensive experience with both SQL Server and XML/XSLT were invaluable; the project also allowed the company to gain exposure to C#, Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

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