Like the rest of the software industry, development automation providers have also been moving their offerings to the public cloud in recent years. Shippable Inc. hopes to set its service apart from the growing crowd with a set of new capabilities that rolled out last week to help streamline large application projects running outside the firewall.

The most notable addition is a dashboard designed to provide a centralized view of code deployed through the platform. Developers thus gain the ability to quickly check if every component of their environments is up-to-date without the delay of looking around on their own, a convenience that can save lot of hassle in a large enterprise. The functionality has the potential to prove as an even bigger boon for technology companies like Gilt Groupe Inc. that roll out updates dozens of times a day, which makes keeping track of everything even more difficult.

Much of the credit for the increasing pace at which development teams are working nowadays goes to Docker Inc. and its namesake container engine. The company also made headlines last week after acquiring a low-profile startup called Conductant Inc. that was founded by engineers from some of the world’s largest technology companies. One team member, Bill Farner, boasts the special distinction of having led Twitter Inc.’s development of Aurora, an open-source framework for automating the management of massively scalable cloud applications.

Docker plans to infuse the capabilities of the system into its homegrown clustering tool to provide the same benefit for large container clusters. The company’s strategy of complementing internal product development efforts with strategic acquisitions takes a page from the playbook of more established vendors like Microsoft Corp., which practices the approach in practically every major part of its business. The latest example came the day after the purchase of Conductant when Redmond revealed the next iteration of its cloud-based Dynamics CRM platform is due to launch in the next quarter.

The company said in its announcement that the release will add web portal technology gained through its acquisition of Adxstudio Inc. late last year. Users are also set to receive new sentiment analysis features meant to help gauge how consumers react to a company’s social media posts and other activities like a major product launch.

Image via Stux