Atomogy - was founded based on its founders' strong interest in building robust enterprise law enforcement and public safety systems, based on clear public need and experience gained during analysis, design, implementation, production rollout, and ongoing operational support of mission critical systems for a California county with one half million citizens.

In the wake of 911 and with government entities at all levels under sometimes severe fiscal pressure, we recognized the strong need for cost effective yet powerful and flexible law enforcement and public safety systems, to serve the needs of Homeland Security, and county and municipal governments.

Law enforcement and public safety systems have unique and demanding requirements that make them particularly challenging. 24/7 operation, stringent security and auditing requirements, high availability, multi-site, multi-jurisdiction operation, high accuracy party identification, interfaces with leading vendor hardware and software systems and interaction with external federal, regional, and local agencies stress these systems in ways that go well beyond that seen in departmental or more limited-scope enterprise systems.

Atomogy's engineers have extensive experience with object-oriented software development, the Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) platform and Linux. While these are powerful enabling technologies and are well-suited to serious mission-critical applications when used well, they pose many pitfalls for the unwary or inexperienced. Extremely solid systems can be built on this base technology platform, but this is only part of the answer.

While J2EE and Linux provide a flexible and powerful general-purpose applications platform. we saw the clear need to go well beyond technologies to properly serve the law enforcement and public safety market.

Engineering and operating these systems requires a particular development style and mindset. Defensive programming, robust component-based software architecture, extensive regression tests, repeatable build and deployment processes, a predictable, highly secured hardware and software platform, and quality designed in from the start are critical elements. The company mindset must also lead one to constantly ask "How does this affect the shift sergeant in the custodial facility", and "How might this affect officers on patrol."

At the same time, laws of economics apply. It is essential to maintain a pragmatic sense of what provides the most value for the dollar, and provide robust features and capabilities that are actually used to provide quality law enforcement and enhance public safety.

To do this, we've architected an applications platform around a powerful set of core framework components that leverage the best features of object-oriented and pattern-based design, and use best-of-breed open source software where possible. In conjunction, we're developing a comprehensive deployment and operations platform from the ground up for reliable, robust, convenient operation.

We find it a rewarding area to work in, and we thank our law enforcement and public customers for constantly assisting us in finding what is important and relevant in these mission-critical systems.