Borland Defines Open Application Lifecycle Management

Open ALM is defined by the following characteristics:

• Any Process: The value of ALM tools is in their ability to automate, track and measure key processes in software delivery. Open ALM supports the customer's established processes, whether waterfall, Agile, RUP or custom.
• Any Tools: Open ALM enables customers to use any combination of lifecycle tools – commercial and open-source – that they choose, while providing visibility and traceability of assets and activities across them and the phases they support.
• Platform Agnostic: The majority of enterprises have a degree of technology heterogeneity. Open ALM supports organizations deploying applications to a broad range of platforms.
• Metrics and Measurement: You can't improve what you can't measure. Open ALM works to automate third-party data collection to drive cross-process software delivery metrics and measurement.

Process-driven integration – the ability for tools to work together and to share digital assets in a way that best supports a customer's specific software delivery process – is at the heart of Borland's product strategy, as is the ability to manage, measure and improve these key processes. Borland's vision for Open ALM is to enable customers to automate existing processes through the integration of any combination of lifecycle tools, while providing a management layer that offers unified metrics and reporting. To deliver on this vision, Borland has outlined the following Open ALM product strategy:

• Open ALM Today: Integrating Core Processes
  Today, Borland offers solutions that support the four critical ALM processes involved in successful software delivery: Project & Portfolio Management, Requirements Definition & Management, Change Management and Lifecycle Quality Management (LQM). Each process is fundamental in driving and coordinating essential software delivery activities. Over the past 24 months, Borland has updated its portfolio of ALM products, extending integrations between tools – both Borland and third-party – to automate and support these processes.
  
  For example, Borland's LQM solution is designed to enable quality assurance activities throughout the software delivery lifecycle. To support this comprehensive quality strategy Borland developed an approach to requirements-based testing, with integrations across its market-leading Borland® Caliber® and Borland Caliber DefineIT™ products into testing products, including Borland's Silk™ product line, as well as HP/Mercury's testing solutions. In addition, Borland SilkCentral® Test Manager™ enables the management of the broadest set of testing technologies from open source and third-party tools – including HP/Mercury® TestDirector® and Borland's Silk products – across unit, developer, functional, load and manual testing.
• Bridge to the Future: Gauntlet Architected for Open ALM
  Today Borland is introducing another example of Open ALM, with its new continuous build and test automation product, Borland Gauntlet. Gauntlet supports effective lifecycle quality management by enabling organizations to continuously track, measure and improve software quality. Gauntlet is built on an open framework that makes it easy for customers to view software quality metrics from a wide range of third-party testing tools in a centralized dashboard. [Editor's note: Please see accompanying press release,"Borland Introduces Business Intelligence for Software Delivery with Release of Gauntlet"]
• Open ALM Tomorrow: Software Delivery as a Managed Business Process
  Over the coming 24 months, Borland will continue to evolve each of its existing products to an updated, open architecture that is based on open standards that will enable customers to plug in third-party tools. Borland will continue to expand on a management layer that offers a unified view of the entire delivery process, including metrics from all of the various supporting tools. Future enhancements to Borland's ALM products will be focused in two core areas that are critical to Open ALM: first, broadening integrations with third-party lifecycle tools and development processes; and second, providing software delivery business intelligence across the various lifecycle phases through customized reporting, process-centric dashboards and Web-based views that provide unified, process-specific ALM metrics.

The Open ALM Manifesto

In an effort to drive fundamental change in the way that organizations approach software delivery, Borland has published an Open ALM Manifesto. This "bill of rights" represents the compass that will direct all of Borland's offerings, initiatives, and customer interactions. It is constructed on the premise that all customers deserve the opportunity to transform their software delivery processes in a way that meets their unique needs and will ultimately result in software that delivers maximum business value. Principles of the Borland Open ALM Manifesto include:

• You have the right to manage your application lifecycle like any other critical business process.
  
  • To make it measurable, predictable and improvable.
• You have the right to remain independent of a vendor's agenda.
  
  • To use any process, tool or platform that fits your needs.
• You have the right to freely choose your software development process.
  
  • To incorporate waterfall, Agile, RUP or your own customized process.
• You have the right to learn from and utilize best practices.
  
  • To compare your current practices to best practices in your industry.
• You have the right to receive the best value.
  
  • To get open tools and skilled consulting at a fair price.