Borland readies customised ALM suites

Borland Software will introduce software suites customised to specific roles in application lifecycle management (ALM), as part of the company's Software Delivery Optimisation (SDO) strategy.

Featuring bits of functionality from existing Borland products such as the CalibreRM requirements management and Together modelling, the Borland Core Software Delivery Platform (SDP) offers suites for business analysts, architects, developers and testers. With SDO, Borland intends to boost success of software development projects through the use of coordinated business processes.

"The whole point [of the suites] is to remove the artificial boundary between products and just to provide the right technology to the end-user," senior vice-president of software products at Borland, Boz Elloy, said.

Previously code-named Project Themis, Borland Core SDP provides a collaborative architecture for predictable software development enabling persons in various roles to work together better.

Borland Core SDP tool suites being unveiled include Analyst, which lets business analysts translate business objectives into software requirements; Architect, designed to let architects synchronise specifications, models, and code; Developer, offering a developer-centric view into specifications, change requests, and test cases; and Tester, intended to ensure applications achieve functional compliance and quality goals.

Borland's approach parallels what Microsoft was doing with its proposed Visual Studio Team System product, research director at IDC, Melissa Webster, said.

"Borland is thinking about how to rethink their packaging so that teams out of the box can get to work," Webster said.

"This [suites packaging] does make it easier for folks to start thinking about buying Borland as an ALM vendor," Webster added.

The initial Core suites for Java are due in March.