Free
Solution Brief
A written brief describing what your business actually needs, produced after a first workshop with two to three hours of preparation beforehand.
The brief. Yours, whatever you decide next.
IT architecture and software boutique
You own the business. You should own the software.
We design and build software for small and medium businesses, one at a time. Every engagement starts with a written brief rather than a quote, and the brief is free and yours to keep.
Does your software work for you, or do you work for it?
Most businesses we meet already have the tools. The tools do not work together, and nobody can say exactly why. It is rarely a technical accident.
What you live with
- Two logins, and the first one is thrown out.
- A changed email address breaks an account instead of updating it.
- Two phones and a laptop exceed something nobody explained.
- Your data sits in five places and agrees in none of them.
- The person who could fix it is a ticket number in another timezone.
Why it is not an accident
These are not defects. They are the business model working exactly as designed. Leaving has to be expensive, or the subscription is not safe.
Why the alternative was missing
Software built to fit solves it, and has always been priced for corporations. So an SME chooses between a platform that does not fit and a build it cannot afford, and both end with somebody else holding the keys.
Dependence is their business model. Freedom is ours.
What happens before anything gets built?
Before anything is built, we go through what you are actually paying for and what is actually yours. Subscriptions nobody remembers starting, renewals that doubled quietly, accounts registered to an agency rather than to you, domains you do not control.
Most businesses arrive with their digital life spread across platforms that benefit from it staying confusing. Clearing that up is not a favour, it is the foundation. You cannot build on an account somebody else owns.
Partly we handle it as administrators on your behalf. Partly we draft the message and you send it, which changes the conversation entirely, because we know which rules apply and which authority is relevant when a platform decides not to answer.
Four clients so far have recovered hundreds of euros a year this way. It is part of the work. It has never appeared on an invoice.
What is the difference between DBOS Systems and dbos.world?
Two things with one name, kept deliberately apart. One sells a product. This one builds for one business at a time.
dbos.systems, here
- About
- Relationship
- The question
- What can you build for me?
- Sells
- Nothing. It books conversations.
- Ends in
- Talk about a project
dbos.world
- About
- Numbers
- The question
- Why does this product exist?
- Sells
- Licences in the shop, tokens in the portal
- Ends in
- Buy the licence
The shop lists licences, the portal lists tokens, and services are never in either.
How does an engagement start?
Three stages, in order, and you may stop at the end of any of them. Paper before code is not a slogan here, it is the sequence you are billed in.
From 819 EUR net
Solution Design
The settled model: what gets built, how it fits together, what it connects to, and in what order.
The design document, and a roadmap with milestones.
By the hour, against the design
Solution Build
The work itself, delivered in stages, each one proven against real data before it is called done.
Working software, and the right to keep using it.
What do you actually build?
IT architecture and consulting
Deciding what to build before building it, and what not to build at all.
Web design and development
Sites that are fast, findable, and owned by the business they belong to.
Ecommerce
Selling online, with the catalogue, payments and customer records joined up.
Data and automation
From chaos comes order. Files, records and the work that moves between them.
Integration and migration
Moving off a platform without losing the business you built on it.
Support and operations
Keeping it running, and being reachable when it does not.
What have you done for businesses like ours?
From chaos comes order. Every DBOS product started as one business's real problem, and the first one started with five thousand photographs nobody could name.
Essaness Music, Kilkenny
Five thousand photographs with no names
The chaos became a catalogue. That engine is now SmartData, and every DBOS client gets it on their first day.
- 5,000 unlabelled product photographs
- 200+ file formats read natively
- 5 rendition sizes produced per image
Essaness Music, Kilkenny
Forty years of search history, carried across intact
The shop is faster, reaches further, and answers questions at two in the morning. Nothing that was findable before became unfindable.
- 241 redirects preserving 40 years of search presence
- 10 languages
- Migrated from WooCommerce
Red Robin Boutique, Philomena
Two hundred and fifty nine products, off Shopify
She owns the shop now. Sizes work the way a boutique actually sells, and the right photograph appears the moment a colour is chosen.
- 259 products migrated, 256 live
- 657 of 682 images recovered
- Migrated from Shopify
We have migrated businesses off Shopify, WooCommerce, WordPress and Wix with their search presence intact, and we have built from scratch.
What happens if you want to stop?
At the end of any completed and paid stage, you may stop. If you stay, you hold a lifelong right to use what was built for you under the licence that covers it, updates and maintenance included. If you leave, you take the version that existed the day you left.
How do you work?
Six rules. They are not aspirations, they are what you may hold us to.
Audit first. Always.
We read what exists before we change anything, and we prove it against real data rather than a green status message.
Paper before code.
Brief, then design, then build. Nobody pays for a build nobody has described.
Never deploy on a guess.
Every change is verified against reality before it is called done.
AI describes. You decide.
Suggestions, never commands. It is your business, and you stay the one running it.
Simplicity beats complexity.
If you need training to use it, we failed.
Compliance from day one.
How we build, not a feature added afterwards.
Who are we?
Founded in Ireland, based in Cyprus, with people in Ireland, the United Kingdom and Germany. Reach and invoicing are different maps and we do not blur them.
Led by Ray, founder and architect, twenty six years from service management to enterprise architecture to high transaction platforms. More about the people.
How do you reach a person?
Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 12:00. Your local time.
Mornings are for people, afternoons are for code. Protected hours in both directions mean a conversation gets full attention and a build gets uninterrupted ones. A developer who is always reachable is a developer who never finishes anything.
Inside the window you reach a person. Outside it, a callback within 10 minutes.
Enquiries are answered the same working day.
Questions people actually ask
What is DBOS Systems?
DBOS Systems is an IT architecture and software boutique. We design and build software for small and medium businesses, starting with a written brief rather than a quote. Founded in Ireland, based in Cyprus, with people in Ireland, the United Kingdom and Germany.
How is DBOS Systems different from dbos.world?
dbos.world sells the product: DBOS licences, bought online. DBOS Systems is the practice that builds and fits things for one business at a time. Nothing can be bought here. This site ends in a conversation, not a checkout.
What does a first conversation cost?
Nothing. The first workshop and the written Solution Brief that follows it are free, and the brief is yours to keep whatever you decide to do next, including walking away or giving it to somebody else.
Are we too small for this?
No. Our clients include a one-person workshop business and a shop with a few hundred products. The work scales down honestly: if what you already own is good enough, we say so rather than selling you something.
How do I reach a person?
Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 12:00 in your own local time, you reach a person directly. Outside that window you get a callback within 10 minutes, and enquiries are answered the same working day.
Which countries do you work in?
Cyprus, Ireland, the United Kingdom and Germany today, in English, Greek and German. We invoice from the entity closest to you rather than from wherever is convenient for us.
What if our website or domain is registered to somebody else?
That is common and it is fixable. Partly we handle it as administrators on your behalf, partly we draft the message for you to send, because we know which rules apply and which authority is relevant when a platform decides not to answer.