We’ve often asked ourselves: What’s the most natural way to provide customer support to our users?

When it comes to solutions for the big data sector, there is a clear split between the legacy and next-generation approaches to software development. Legacy vendors in this space generally have their own large internal development organizations, dedicated to building proprietary, bespoke software. It’s an approach that has worked well over the years.

For quite a while now, cloud-native has been one of the hottest topics in software development. Some developers just call it hype that will lose traction and disappear after some time. For others, it’s the future of software development. Whatever the future will bring, cloud-native is currently one of the biggest trends in the software industry. It has already changed the way we think about developing, deploying and operating software products. But what exactly is “cloud native”?

DevOps is a set of practices that automates the processes between software development and IT teams so they can build, test, and release software more quickly and reliably. The concept of DevOps is founded on building a culture of collaboration between IT and business teams, which have historically functioned in relative siloes. The promised benefits include increased trust, faster software releases, and the ability to solve critical issues quickly.

If you’ve spent any time reading the round-up of 2018 technology predictions, you’ve likely seen Artificial Intelligence (AI) highlighted in nearly every one. The reason for this is because AI has a seemingly limitless number of applications and use cases for the enterprise. In fact, according to Gartner, over 85% of customer interactions will be managed without a human by 2020.

We’re here to attest to the strength of the generalist (just in case Shakespeare hadn’t already proven himself). In fact, when we lost our push notification provider, we put two new providers head-to-head—one generalist versus one specialist. The result wasn’t so clear cut.

Bugfender is a tool that assists mobile developers debug their applications and provide better customer support, by gathering logs from devices using their apps. In essence, Bugfender acts as a really long USB cable that connects all mobile phones running your application back to your computer… even if your application was downloaded from the App Store or Google Play and you’ve never actually met the user in person. Handy, right?

We’d like to take this opportunity to wish you a very happy holiday and a prosperous New Year. Thank you for all of your continued support and trust in Bugfender, we are truly grateful! We look forward to helping you eliminate bugs in 2018!

A tough piece of pulled pork. A weak cup of tea. A partially-healed hamstring sent back onto the field of play. E.T., the video game. Some things need more time to reach their peak. Desires that drive us—hunger, thirst, victory, financial success—can override the need to just be patient. If you rush thingith an unsatisfying pulled pork sandwich—or a bunch of game cartridges buried in a Mexican landfill.