Application lifecycle management (ALM) supplier Borland Software Corp. last week launched a new requirements management package that promises to reduce the number of late and costly changes to software development projects.
Dubbed TeamDefine, the software lets dev teams and analysts visually simulate application models to provide detailed, dynamic mock-ups based on established requirements. The release comes just three weeks after British software company Micro Focus said it is acquiring the Austin, Texas-based Borland.
TeamDefine provides a visual canvas for business analysts to sketch out workflows and logic structures. These workflows can then be attached to visual application mock-ups, allowing dev teams to trial-run requirements and make changes that can be reflected back into the underlying TeamDefine definitions.
"We all know that poorly written or poorly defined requires are the root of all evil," said David Wilby, Borland's vice president of product strategy, in an interview. "The scary thing is, even though it is so well-recognized by the industry, there are very few tools for filling that gap."
TeamDefine will cater to the diverse interests of different stakeholder interests, noted Bola Rotibi, principal analyst at U.K.-based analyst firm Macehiter Ward-Dutton, in an e-mail interview. Rotibi noted that TeamDefine integrates with Borland's CaliberRM requirements management product.
"TeamDefine is part of a new wave of simulation tools that is finally and pragmatically, in my opinion, tackling the requirements capture process for GUI-based applications," Rotibi said. "We are now starting to see the types of tools needed to really support the development of rich Internet/interactive applications, and bring it back into the folds of the software development process and workflow."
The high cost of making late changes to applications provides a compelling ROI pitch for Borland. According to a study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the cost of making a change at the test or production phase of a software rollout is orders of magnitude higher than at the requirements or design phases.
Borland TeamDefine is available immediately. Pricing is set at $3,000 per user, with unlimited reviewer seats supported. More information can be found at Borland's Web site here.
