New ProKarma Delivery Center Opens in Hacienda

By Jay Hipps, Hacienda Network Staff Writer

International Software Firm Expands its Bay Area Presence

A new tenant, ProKarma, has recently arrived in Hacienda, augmenting the park's already robust group of software companies. Founded in 2004, ProKarma delivers "everything from custom application development and analytics to mobile applications and implementation and maintenance of enterprise software such as SAP," says Miz Nakajima, ProKarma marketing director. The company's new Hacienda location, totaling some 7,500 square feet at 4309 Hacienda Drive, suite 180, is one of 21 offices for the Portland, Oregon-based firm.

"Pleasanton is a great area for its proximity to our Bay area client base," Nakajima says. "Our office location at Hacienda will serve as a development center, which we expect to scale up to 100 employees by mid-2016. This center will enable us to continue providing expanded technology delivery capabilities to our existing and new client acquisitions in the region." ProKarma operates additional delivery centers in Omaha, Denver, Portland, and Buenos Aires, as well as Hyderabad and Chennai, India..

One example of the company's work is the development of an app called iPharmAssist for a healthcare startup, MedifVu.

"The end result was an app with an intuitive, engaging user interface that can be easily extended as a stand-alone solution or integrated into a larger mobile device providing its users with highly customized information for choosing the right OTC medication for their cough, cold and flu symptoms," says Nakajima.

Creating the app called upon extensive areas of knowledge and experience. ProKarma leveraged its expertise in the healthcare industry and in mobile service offerings including strategy, solution architecture, user experience, and user interface design. The app was built upon a MySQL database and includes service layers that can pull from any data source without the need for modification.

Another example of ProKarma's work is a project that was undertaken for a farm equipment company with operations in 20 countries that is a worldwide leader in irrigation equipment. The goal was to create a new, web-based platform that would allow farmers to monitor their equipment, assess its condition, and take the necessary readings remotely. Adding to the challenge was the fact that most farms use irrigation equipment manufactured by a variety of vendors that have their own proprietary technology.

ProKarma was able to take the client's outdated Windows-based product and upgrade it to a Web-based platform while simultaneously enhancing the feature set and overhauling the user experience and user interface through wireframe and visual design. ProKarma assembled a team of more than 45 people to develop a unified system that can control and monitor different irrigation equipment from different vendors. A farmer can access the system via the desktop or mobile app.

While both the MedifVu and irrigation projects involved custom mobile apps, that is just a small part of what ProKarma provides its customers.

"We're seeing a surge of activities around DevOps and Analytics/Business Intelligence right now," adds Nakajima. "Decision support systems based on predictive analytics, data science insights, and massive amounts of data harnessed through machine data (IoT) are things that we are seeing a lot of interest and traction on. We work with leading companies from across industries including healthcare, telecommunications, manufacturing and transportation."

For additional information on ProKarma, access the company's web site at www.prokarma.com.

Photo: Lisa Bain, VP of Strategic Accounts

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