Utility applications are the life-blood of all corporations. The enterprise applications may get all the glory but utility applications, those little worker-bees that help the day-to-day operations, really run the show. In most if not all companies utility applications get implemented into less-than-ideal platforms. From spreadsheets to desktop databases, these one-off solutions carry a high-price and risk. Spreadsheets are easy to create but are non-colaborative and once released into the wild impossible to version control. End result, you have multiple versions with different data floating around in emails and on users desktops that can adversely affect your view of the very thing they are trying to represent. Desktop databases provide data interfaces to one person but now you have a single-point-of-failure. If that person who developed the database gets a new role in your organization, decides to leave, or simply goes on vacation, you have the same scenario you've spent gobs of money to prevent, your application is offline. Sure you can do a knowledge transfer, cross-train, or hope for the best, but that's extra time, money and risk you don't need.

Utility applications constructed with Creator and Builder are web-based, funtional and cost-effective solutions that eliminate single-point-of-failure, are collaborative and version controlled. Utility applications are similar to prototypes but with the goal of providing a simple consistent web interface. Now everyone in a group can enter, view and output data from the same place without all the hassle associated with a full enterprise deployment. This gives you the ability to negotiate an SLA with your IT group that is less stringent than a core application but still give you the piece of mind knowing that you investment is protected.