Software delivery optimisation enables accelerated, disciplined approach

At the Borland Conference 2004, Dale Fuller, President and CEO of Borland Software Corporation, presented Borland`s vision and product strategy for transforming software development from an unpredictable art form into a more manageable and repeatable business process.

Borland`s vision for software delivery optimisation builds on the technical efficiencies of application lifecycle management (ALM), and incorporates the business processes and management capabilities companies seek to ensure business-to-IT alignment, and the delivery of quality software, on time, within budget, for maximum business value.

Fuller also announced today how Borland is beginning to deliver on its software delivery optimisation vision through a combination of technical innovation, strategic partnerships, integrated services and a product strategy that will better address all roles within the software delivery process - from the business owners and CIO through developers.

"Borland is a recognised leader in the software development industry with over 20 years of innovation and experience," said Fuller. "Our software delivery optimisation vision expands upon application lifecycle management, addressing the next phase of software development and delivery by bringing the rigors of a managed business process to the software organisation. By improving the process of delivering quality software, businesses can reliably achieve both cost savings and competitive advantage."

Software is one of the chief engines driving business today. It unlocks the information to inform decisions, enables agility to capitalise on new opportunities and makes possible the efficiencies that impact a company`s bottom line. However, the process for developing one of business` most important assets is still too chaotic, costly, unpredictable and hard to measure.

"Many IT organisations are so busy wrestling with the complexity of development that they are struggling to keep pace with the rapid changes in business demands," said Carl Zetie, vice-president at Forrester Research, in an August 2004 report (1).

"Some of the increased complexity is the inevitable result of the fact that applications are architecturally more sophisticated than in the past," said Zetie. "Integration across applications, departments, or businesses is inherently more complex than building silos of functionality." To address these challenges, the software delivery optimisation vision provides a roadmap to transform software development into a managed business process.

Software delivery optimisation refers to both a vision, strategy and product roadmap for Borland Software. At the Borland Conference 2004, Fuller announced a number of ways Borland will immediately begin to deliver on this vision:

Expansion of Borland`s Worldwide Services Group: Borland announced today an expanded services organisation that will offer the knowledge and enterprise services that Borland believes businesses need to transform the software delivery process. The Worldwide Services Group expands on Borland`s existing educational and support offerings, leveraging the company`s extensive software expertise as well as strong industry partnerships. The expanding group offers integrated components to customers and partners.

* Customer Lifecycle Management - a set of integrated education, consulting, implementation and technical support solutions from Borland and partner resources designed to ensure greater project success and customer loyalty.

* Borland Accelerate - a knowledge network of methodologies, processes and best practices designed to help businesses develop software with maximum business value.

* Borland University - a learning portal and dashboard that is scheduled to be launched in Q1 2005 to help train, certify, test and educate teams on how to optimise the software delivery process.

A single solution for software delivery optimisation: Borland will also align its products according to this vision by adding business alignment and process management capabilities to existing ALM tools, the foundation upon which software delivery optimisation is based. For example, StarTeam 2005 and Caliber 2005, Borland`s software configuration and requirements management solutions announced today, will include new project estimation and planning capabilities as well as information mining across distributed networks. These and other new functionalities should provide more insight, predictability and control over software projects. See today`s announcement at http://www.borland.com/news/press_releases/index.html for more information.

Borland also announced today its plan to develop a cohesive platform that will integrate engineering discipline with business methodologies across multiple roles in the software delivery process. This solution is designed to ensure tasks and roles are not relegated to points in time across a project, but that each role has visibility into the entire process and control over the steps they manage or influence. This role-based solution should help tackle issues such as, but not limited, to project and portfolio management, scope and risk management, and quality and change impact assessment. The first iteration of this platform, code named "Themis", is expected to be delivered in the first half of 2005.

According to Tom Murphy, vice-president of Meta Group: "The software delivery optimisation vision incrementally bridges the gaps between management, software development and operations by automating business and software development processes, so that traditional complexities become transparent. If executed on correctly, this strategy may do for software development what ERP did to the process of manufacturing."

"We`re happy to be working with partners like Borland who understand the need to reduce complexity and improve predictability within the software development process," said Rick LaPlante, general manager for Visual Studio 2005 Team System at Microsoft Corp. "Borland`s long history in this space, its strong roots in application lifecycle management, and its close relationship with software leaders like Microsoft puts it in a good position to deliver on its new vision."

"Many of the CIOs who we work with are searching for ways to improve software development processes in order to positively impact business performance," said Patrick Austern, delivery tools lead at Accenture, a leading global systems integrator. "Leveraging our three decades of experience in solution delivery, we are helping CIOs successfully reach this goal by automating proven methodology, processes and metrics through an integrated toolset. We see software delivery optimisation tools at the heart of this integrated toolset."

For more information on software delivery optimisation and Borland`s roadmap for how it can maximise the business value of software, please visit: http://www.borland.com/software_delivery.