When people started thinking about YAP, native cloud applications were still being tested even by the “Big” guys in IT, making the project particularly ambitious.
We asked Stefano Ciccarelli, the “father” of YAP how this cutting-edge idea came about and how the project has grown over the past 10 years.
Hi Stephen, tell us how the project, so innovative, of making YAP came about?
The idea dates back to 2009 and is related to the IT world of those years. Today we all, or almost all, know what an application is and the difference between APPs installed on the smartphone and web apps. In 2009, on the other hand, there were many websites providing information about it, but few specific services and little interaction. In this landscape Google, pioneeringly, and other startups, began to show the world that web applications could be a reality and could be as beautiful and powerful as traditional ones. At that time Gmail and Google Maps were born, to cite two fairly famous examples.
In 2008 Google had launched its cloud dedicated to software houses, and in 2009 it enhanced it with new features.
In this context I matured the idea of moving traditional management for review centers inside a browser, thus making the program usable through the Internet.
What made you realize that this could be a winning idea?
The buzz that was on the web, the success of the iPhone, Google’s launch of Chrome, the continued emergence of startups that instead of making software for Windows were developing software directly on the Internet and usable anywhere were changes that were too strong and too impetuous to represent just a bubble-the world was going there, we could do no wrong.
From your point of view, what are the strengths of YAP?
Today? It may stand the test of time. 10 years ago? He was 10 years ahead.
If you were to take stock of these first 10 years of the software, what would you tell us?
I would say that YAP has grown well and has not aged. From being a simple management software for overhauls, it has expanded to the auto repair and tire maintenance sector and, above all, thanks to Omar Montanari’s intuition, it has proven to be the perfect tool for multi-service realities.
In these 10 years there have been great evolutions in the world of software development. In this context, how has YAP’s technology evolved?
Technologically, YAP is basically unchanged, its core is the same as it was 10 years ago, and this is definitely fascinating because it shows how advanced and ahead of its time the path was.
Today, however, our use of Google’s cloud is much more pervasive, and we can say that we have relied on a winning player that continues to grow and invest precisely in the cloud world.
Instead, how much has your work changed from that of the initial stages of the project?
The biggest challenge has been to grow: the software has grown, the team has grown, and the customers have grown. We have managed this evolution by applying all the most modern processes that the software industry has gradually offered us, and we continue to do so. Staying on the cutting edge I think has been and still is the biggest challenge.
We’ve talked about the past and the present, so all that’s left is one last question, about the future this time: what do you imagine YAP will look like in 10 years?
Good question. I have no idea-surely always a few years ahead!