About IDesign

IDesign’s goal is to affect a change on the software industry, to help it mature into a modern engineering discipline. We focus solely on the design and architecture phases of development. As such we are unique in the market. Software design today (if practiced at all) is still practiced as a craft, rather than a repeatable engineering methodology, in spite of the availability of an established well-known body of knowledge and design patterns. IDesign managed to literally mechanize the act of designing software systems. Design is not time consuming or even expensive, but done poorly it has drastic detrimental effect on the overall cost, time to market, maintainability, extensibility, quality, and even the developers morale and turnover rate. Using an analogy from the civil engineering industry, IDesign is really the engineering company that provides the building’s blueprints. While designing a building can be done in weeks, constructing it may take a couple of years. The same is true with software design: our engagements are relatively short, as little as two to five dedicated, effective days, where we analyze the requirements and produce the design.
All of IDesign’s architects have unmatched experience with designing .NET-based systems and frameworks, as well as world-renowned reputation as industry leaders.

We also believe that design and architecture are inseparable from the underlying technology, just like civil engineering architecture is inseparable from building materials and building codes. To that effect, we offer our customer advanced training and mentoring on the technology at hand (.NET 4.0, Windows Azure platform and AppFabric service bus).

Another unique quality of IDesign is our commitment to a mature software development process. Done properly, the process will maximize your team productivity, binding the team members with technology and with each other, allowing you to repeatedly meet your goals and requirements - on time and within budget and quality.

By focusing on design and architecture, great technology and the process, we provide our customers with the latest state-of-the-art practices, reducing the overall technology risk, thus allowing the customer in turn to focus on their domain and to add value to the application, rather than be slowed down by the technology or the design challenges.

IDesign Chief Architects

Juval Löwy is the founder of IDesign and a seasoned software architect specializing in system architecture and large applications design. Juval has mentored hundreds of architects across the globe, sharing his insight, techniques and breakthrough, in design, development process and technology. Juval is Microsoft’s Regional Director for the Silicon Valley, working with Microsoft on .NET and cloud adoption. Juval also participates in the Microsoft internal strategic design reviews for future versions of .NET and related technologies. Juval is a frequent speaker at the major international software development conferences, where he presents his techniques and breakthroughs and he chairs the .NET track at the Dev Connections and SD West conferences. Juval published several bestsellers, and his latest book is the third edition of Programming WCF Services (O'Reilly 2010). Juval published numerous articles, regarding almost every aspect of developing with .NET. Microsoft recognized Juval as a Software Legend as one of the world's top .NET experts and industry leaders.

Michele Leroux Bustamante brings a well-rounded skill set to the IDesign, including expertise not just in architecture and technology but also in interoperability, management, and operations. Michele is not only an IDesign Chief Architect, she is also Microsoft Regional Director for San Diego, and a Microsoft MVP for Connected Systems. With over 15 years of experience designing enterprise systems, prior to IDesign Michele has held senior executive positions at several corporations. She has assembled and organized software development teams from the ground up, implemented processes for all aspects of the software development lifecycle, and facilitated many successful large-scale enterprise application deployments, including capital fund raising, sales, and business development efforts. Michele specializes in training, mentoring and high-end architecture consulting services focusing on scalable and secure architecture design for .NET, web services, interoperability, federated security scenarios and globalization architecture. She participates in Software Design Reviews for products in the Microsoft roadmap, including WCF and CardSpace. Michele participated in prototyping elements of the CardSpace technology for the product team. Michele has been advisor to University of California, San Diego Extension since 1994, establishing several successful certificate programs. Michele is a member of the International .NET Speakers Association; a frequent conference presenter at major technology conferences such as Tech Ed, PDC, and Dev Connections. Michele has been a conference chair for many conferences and events, and is currently conference chair for the Cloud Computing track at Dev Connections; and she regularly publishes in several technology journals. Michele’s latest book is Learning WCF (O’Reilly, 2007, updated 2008/2009).

Brian Noyes is not only a Chief Architect with IDesign, he is also Microsoft’s Regional Director for the Mid-Atlantic region and a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP), with over 16 years of programming, engineering, and project management experience. Brian specializes in smart client architecture and development, presentation tier technologies including Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Forms and ASP.NET, workflow, and data access. Brian’s latest publication is Developing Applications with Windows Workflow Foundation, a LiveLessons training DVD. Brian’s previous two books Smart Client Deployment with ClickOnce and Data Binding with Windows Forms 2.0 continue to be best sellers. Brian continuously publishes articles in a variety of publications and speaks at international conferences and events including Microsoft TechEd US, Europe, and Malaysia, Visual Studio Connections, DevTeach. Brian is a top-rated speaker on the INETA Speakers Bureau and travels the country frequently speaking to developer user groups. Brian also has long term experience in the government sector, having worked for defense and federal agencies as a software developer and architect and as a government software project manager while on active duty in the Navy. Brian got started with programming to stimulate his brain while flying F-14 Tomcats in the Navy and is a Top Gun and Test Pilot School graduate. You can always find out the latest things Brian is up to through his blog.

Mark Michaelis is the IDesign architect specializing in WCF and VSTS, and also the Microsoft’s Regional Director for the state of Washington. Mark was recognized by Microsoft as a Microsoft MVP for Visual Studio Team System and he wrote the official courseware for VSTS for Microsoft. Mark holds a MS in Computer Science from the Illinois Institute of Technology and he serves on several Microsoft Software Design Review teams including WCF, C# and VSTS. Mark speaks at developer conferences both nationally and internationally and has written several articles and books, in addition to maintaining a blog. His recent book is Essential C# 2.0 (Addison-Wesley, 2006).

Dino Esposito is one of the world’s authorities on web technology and software architecture. Over years, Dino developed hands-on experience and skills in architecting and building distributed systems for banking and insurance companies and, in general, in industry contexts where the demand for security, optimization, performance, scalability, interoperability is dramatically high. Dino is also a prolific author, Every month, at least five different magazines and Web sites throughout the world publish Dino's articles covering topics ranging from Web development to AJAX architectures and from data access to Silverlight and design patterns. Dino published an array of books, most of which are considered state-of-the-art in their respective areas. His recent books are Programming ASP.NET 3.5—Core Reference, Introducing Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX, and Programming Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 Applications—Advanced Topics. Dino speaks regularly at industry conferences all over the world, including Microsoft TechEd, DevConnections, and premiere European conferences such as DevWeek and Basta.

Miguel Castro is an architect with IDesign with over 22 years of experience in the software industry. He’s a Microsoft MVP, member of the INETA Speakers Bureau, and ASP Insider. With a Microsoft background that goes all the way back to VB 1.0 (and QuickBasic in fact), Miguel has spoken at numerous user groups, code camps, and conferences throughout the US and overseas. He has also been featured on the technology talk shows, .NET Rocks, .NET Rocks-TV, Microsoft’s ARCast (Architecture Podcast), and The Polymorphic Podcast on numerous occasions. He specializes in architecture and development consulting and training using Microsoft technologies. Miguel is also a regular author with CoDe Magazine.

Shy is a Chief Cloud Architect with IDesign focusing on cloud computing, distributed systems, and software architecture. Shy was a Senior Program Manager at Microsoft, where he worked for 13 years on projects such as WCF, MSN, MSMQ, and Windows. Today Shy is a Microsoft MVP (Connected Systems) and a frequent presenter at technology conferences around the world. In addition to his consulting work for clients like Microsoft, HP and the US Government, Shy is closely involved with various product groups at Microsoft, and is often invited to participate in advisory boards and design reviews, helping Microsoft shape their future products.