Consumer Reports needed to deliver its hallmark rich information experience to the new generation of mobile and web consumers. Cognitect built an enterprise data container service that makes development simpler, faster, and consistently reliable.

Since 1936, Consumer Reports has been the go-to source for reviews and product comparisons, Over the years, they have amassed a huge amount of data in a variety of systems and databases, creating a complex array of backend interfaces. Any time Consumer Reports wanted to build a new app, they had to integrate across these multiple data sources and interfaces, which slowed development.

Consumer Reports knew that its current challenges in app development ran counter to the organization’s reputation for reliability and up-to-date recommendations, and its lack of timeliness creating new apps limited their ability to attract new audiences.

Consumer Reports brought in experts from Cognitect to advance their mobile and web application development. Cognitect built an enterprise-wide container service using Clojure and Datomic that fuses together all the underlying backend systems and databases, providing a consistent set of services to developers.

Faster

With an enterprise-wide container service, apps that used to take weeks or months to develop now take days. Creating apps faster means Consumer Reports can develop more apps to meet consumer needs.

Simpler

With a streamlined approach of the container service, one or two developers can create an app that used to require a team approach, since backend system knowledge is no longer necessary to create an app.

Consistently Reliable

Using a unified service rather than replicating backend system logic for each new application decreases the risk of copying bugs from one program to another, reinforcing Consumer Reports’s reputation for trustworthiness.

Agile App Development Meets Consumer Demands

With the enterprise-wide container service, Consumer Reports developers can create applications quickly with decreased risk and effort, and with more reliability. As a result, Consumer Reports can be more responsive in creating apps that provide the data consumers are searching for.