Zac Parkplatz Ltd (ZP) provides design consultancy and implementation services in the area of software that drives websites. Founded in 1999, we are based in the Midlands region of the UK.

ZP has worked with clients in business and in the charity and public sectors, with a focus on the small/medium organisation. We understand the difficulties of growing a business too small to have a range of IT specialists, but with needs that cannot fully be met with off-the-shelf solutions. In this situation, what you need is someone with the analytical skills to understand your needs, and the knowledge and experience to see how best to meet them. We can analyse your needs and offer professional advice on how to meet them; see the Consultancy tab below.

software know-how	Between us we have over 50 years' experience of IT, have studied computing science theory and taught practical IT skills, and have delivered many successful software projects to time and within budget using a wide variety of skills. We can design and implement software for our customers, or integrate existing systems; see Business Systems. When you hire us, you get a wealth of experience, but because we have low overheads, the price is more affordable than from larger solution providers.
web wisdom	Having set up our first web server in 1994, we have been developing and maintaining web software ever since, so we have the experience to understand the web and the judgement to evaluate new technologies as they emerge. We can design and/or develop a suitable website for you (see Web Design) with a sound understanding of how the web software needs to integrate with your other office systems.

software know-how

Between us we have over 50 years' experience of IT, have studied computing science theory and taught practical IT skills, and have delivered many successful software projects to time and within budget using a wide variety of skills. We can design and implement software for our customers, or integrate existing systems; see Business Systems. When you hire us, you get a wealth of experience, but because we have low overheads, the price is more affordable than from larger solution providers.

web wisdom

Having set up our first web server in 1994, we have been developing and maintaining web software ever since, so we have the experience to understand the web and the judgement to evaluate new technologies as they emerge. We can design and/or develop a suitable website for you (see Web Design) with a sound understanding of how the web software needs to integrate with your other office systems.

The sections below describe our principal activities and general approach. They also give details of the quality you can expect from us. To request more information, or if you think our expertise could help your organisation, please tell us more.

Click on one of the tabs above if you would like to find out more.

Consultancy

Our consultants have a wide range of experience of small organisations, and we understand the challenge of deploying IT systems on a tight budget. To be successful in 2008, every organisation needs to be part of the connected world, but automating office processes and integrating packages together - and especially integrating them with client-facing websites - can be difficult to achieve without a sizeable IT department to research products and maintain an understanding of the latest technologies. We can analyse your needs and advise you on approach, as well as giving you information about the highest quality open source (free) and commercial software available.

We can also deliver training tailored to your needs, from one-to-one coaching up to structured training courses.

Clear communication

There are a lot of buzzwords around in IT, like ‘extreme’ and ‘tiers’ and ‘web 2.0’. Our consultancy report to you, and our manuals or any other written product that we supply, will be written in plain English and tailored to your level of understanding. Our principal consultants are PhD graduates who are well practiced in expressing themselves in written form as well as giving presentations.

Business Systems - Design, Development and Integration

While packaged software usually brings the lowest total cost of ownership for small businesses, sooner or later most organisations find themselves in need of bespoke software to integrate their various systems together, or start looking for a value add whereby features not normally available in commercial packages can give a significant competitive advantage. We are highly experienced system architects, project managers and developers, so we can meet your needs with confidence, whether you require a complete new online booking system or just an off-the-shelf shopping cart application.

Software development

We use Java as our main implementation language because of its industry-leading security, scaleability and cross-platform portability. We can also supply software using PHP, JavaScript, Perl, Python, Groovy or Ruby. For web-related systems, we can host your website on our servers, set up a directly-owned hosted server for you, or supply the software only. We are also experienced in developing client-side applets and desktop applications in Java and have experience of implementing database systems that have both a website interface for the customer and a PC-based interface for the office.

SQL programming and database installation

We specialise in complex, database-backed websites and have considerable expertise in developing SQL-based applications in portable SQL as far as possible. We usually recommend Oracle, PostgreSQL or mySQL. For Java development we recommend the JEE5 and Java Data Objects (JDO2) standards to power the database and provide vendor independence; we can also work with the J2EE and Java Persistence Architecture (JPA) standards.

Website Software

We understand that in today's environment, the internet and the web are used as business tools and an information resource, and not just as another format for the output of your marketing department. We bring our understanding of user interface design to your understanding of your customers (and what they need from your website) to produce a content-focussed, customer-centric website design.

As well as completely new websites we can also help you deploy and customise off-the-shelf portals, e-commerce applications and content management systems.

Websites using HTML, CSS and XML

We can produce websites which are designed by an experienced graphic designer and we can also provide consultancy on print-based design if you wish to co-ordinate your website and print materials. We believe in a standards-based approach to website implementation, so as to produce websites that are accessible to the disabled as well as working across common browsers on all platforms.

Because we implement to standards, you can deploy software that we develop for you on whatever database, application server and operating system platforms you wish. This also protects your investment if you decide to change platform in the future.

Tell Us More

To discuss your project with us, please e-mail zac@parkplatz.net. Or call us on 024 7633 1375 to give us your contact details.

One of our principal consultants will then contact you by whatever means you wish, to discuss your needs further and normally to arrange a meeting. We will not pass your details on to any third party.

(ZP is Zac Parkplatz Limited, registered in England, company number 3791093)