HMW

What do we do

We solve your computing problems. Simple as that.

Who are we?

HMW Computing was founded in 1981 as a City of London based specialist consultancy offering bespoke systems development and financial modelling to the Financial Markets and Insurance industry.

Initially we worked mainly on timesharing systems and quickly developed a involvement with Rapid Application Development. In 1986 we began a long involvement with Midland bank (now part of HSBC), first modelling financial instruments and then developing a Foreign Exchange Dealing System called MID4X. From this experience and development for other clients 4xtraDS was born, which now boasts an impressive range of facilities across a wide spectrum of trading products.

The consultancy side has continued to evolve, embracing Internet solutions and enhancing our own in-house methodology until we became full members of the DSDM Consortium. Although no longer members, since that time we have worked to incorporate our approach within the DSDM framework. We have also absorbed many ideas from the eXtreme Programming approach.

Partnerships

The 4xtra Alliance

In early 2000, we formally constituted a Joint Venture with Phil Last Limited and John Butler Associates after successful co-operation on a number of Y2K projects, though the three companies have co-operated for many years. The Joint Venture is called the 4xtra alliance.
Its aim is to develop an integrated series of products and services, based on our long history of collaboration and the wide range of existing application packages, together with new Internet based offerings.

This is the home page of HMW Computing. Until recently all of our company information was held on the 4XTRA web site, as we are the Administrator of the joint venture. Although HMW continues to pursue its own aims, much of our current trading activity is through 4xtra.

The APL Consultants Group - A New Force for APL

The APL Consultants Group is a collective venture of professionals working as consultants using the APL programming language and other related array-based programming languages such as J and K.

It brings together a wealth of IT development, support and training experience adding up to several hundred man-years. Membership ranges from individual consultants through to international companies. Its geographic emphasis is global.

Services available through the APL Consultants Group include...

• Custom application design and development.
• Staff training, both in-house, locally, and supported self-study.
• Technical appraisal of existing applications and deployment of APL.
• Modernisation and customisation of legacy applications.
• Advice and implementation of best-practices.
• A technical website where technicalities are discussed in depth.
• Advice on supporting existing application.
• Assistance with recruiting in-house staff.

The APL Consultants Group is neither a consultancy, nor a recruitment clearing house. It is a focus for APL professionals and a resource which clients wanting to maximise the leverage of rapid application development through mature and academically sound technologies may draw upon.

Above all, the consultants and companies who comprise the APL Consultants Group are independent of any product vendor – their services are targeted at maximising the benefits to their clients.

To find out more about the APL Consultants Group, visit our (nascent) website at www.aplconsultants.org or send email to info@aplconsultants.org. Note that the site refers to us as “The Orchard Group” - a working name that we were using while getting ourselves organised.

Consultants and companies wanting to participate as members, please send email to join@aplconsultants.org.

Professional Contractors Group

The PCG describes itself thus

PCG was formed in May 1999 to provide independent contractors and consultants with a representative voice in opposition to the original IR35 proposals. Since then, we have evolved from being a single-issue campaign group to being a fully fledged, not-for-profit professional body representing knowledge workers who choose to be self-employed.

HMW wasn't in any way affected by IR35 (neither performing work which fell with the legislation, nor being a self-employed individual), but we joined the PCG soon after its inception and became founder members of the PCG's Quality Assurance programme which aims to provide ISO9000 qualification for small companies in the IT sector. Go to the main PCG site for more details.