IBM Transforms How People Work Together

Bangkok - IBM Thailand announced new software that will transform how people will collaborate thereby driving greater value and performance from their globally distributed software investments. These new offerings use IBM's Jazz collaborative technology to help geographically distributed software delivery teams work together in an open, real-time and transparent manner to more effectively deliver and source software solutions.

The challenges of globalization are forcing companies to become more nimble, using an increasingly geographically-dispersed and virtual workforce to remain competitive. In the world of software delivery, this means around the clock collaboration with specialized teams around the globe to pick up where another left off. For other stakeholders in an organization, such as lawyers, a finance department, CIO or CEO, there is an increased need for visibility into how the software is delivered on a global scale. Technologies built on, or using, Jazz can interoperate with software from other vendors allowing customers to significantly improve their ability to communicate data within and between their enterprise.

"In the world of software development today, many developers face many obstacles to get their jobs done efficiently and this has an impact on business agility and return on software investments. This has become even more so especially in a globally integrated enterprise where there is an urgent need for many organizations who need to transform how they collaborate" said Ms. Jadesada Kraisingkorn, Country Manager, Software Group, IBM Thailand Co., Ltd. "IBM's Jazz platform breaks down location, infrastructure and organizational barriers, drastically changing the practice of global software delivery."

According to Forrester Research*, only 37% of stakeholders are satisfied with the speed of internal application development, and just 42% are satisfied with the quality. IBM's new Jazz platform can transform software delivery into a dynamic integration of people, processes and projects. As the scope of software development and delivery broadens in this era of globalization, IBM is incorporating social networking and Web 2.0 practices into the new versions of its market-leading software delivery platform.

Available on June 30, 2008, IBM Rational Team Concert incorporates social networking technologies, such as instant messaging and presence awareness, into the management of a software delivery project on a global scale. IBM Rational Team Concert helps software teams collaborate in real time in the context of specific roles and processes. Integrated version control, work item and build management capabilities help distributed teams overcome geographic and functional barriers to think and work in unison. IBM Rational Team Concert includes automated data gathering resulting in significantly less documentation and provides real-time project health information required to reduce project risk.  

Making effective software delivery a reality for the small development team, IBM is also introducing IBM Rational Team Concert Express-C Edition, a free version available for download from www.jazz.net using open source Tomcat and Derby. IBM Rational TeamConcert Express-C is designed to help consultants and students gain experience with a global software delivery environment. The software can help mid-sized and departmental teams embrace global collaboration quickly using transparent development, out-of-the-box processes and supports up to 50 users per server. IBM Rational Team Concert Standard Edition, optimized for corporate teams, includes an expanded set of capabilities such as customizable process, real-time project health, enterprise scalability and supports up to 250 users per server. In 2009, IBM Rational Team Concert Enterprise Edition will provide the broadest array of capabilities that any size team can use, including feature-rich work item management and greater source code and configuration management capabilities.

IBM is introducing IBM Rational Requirements Composer to help software delivery teams gain consensus on how a project should be designed using familiar business artifacts such as storyboards, sketches, scenarios and models. Currently in beta, this new software will help teams visualize commitments thereby reducing rework and review cycles on requirements.

At the foundation of these new offerings is Jazz collaborative technology which provides a platform of services enabling powerful integration. Similar to what Eclipse did to consolidate the desktop, Jazz will transform the industry by supporting interoperability across a broad array of collaborative application lifecycle management solutions. Over the next several years, most of the IBM Rational portfolio will evolve to incorporate Jazz technology to improve team collaboration and make it easier to integrate IBM products and those from IBM's business partners. This will provide both new and existing IBM customers with a flexible on-ramp to the Jazz platform of the future.

IBM is developing Jazz and future products in conjunction with the software development community at www.jazz.net. At Jazz.net, members of the community can transparently collaborate with IBM and each other, provide input on requirements, report bugs and ultimately contribute to the development of IBM's industry-leading software delivery platform. By opening up the software development community as a transparent software supply chain, the Jazz.net community will drive the evolution of standards and common components incorporated in future IBM software releases.