IBM to Introduce 20 Products Based on Jazz by End of 2008

IBM has recently announced the launch of 20 new products based on its Jazz platform by the end of 2008. The announcement was made by the company at its Rational Software Development Conference which was attended by 5000 customers, business partners and developers.


“Currently, organizational, geographical and technical silos inhibit business agility and return on software investments. In a globally integrated enterprise, organizations need to transform how they collaborate to get the job done," said Steve Robinson, Vice President, Worldwide Sales, Rational Software, IBM. "The Jazz platform breaks down location, infrastructure and organizational barriers, transforming the practice of global software delivery," he added.


The company will introduce 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.


It is also announcing the beta of IBM Rational Quality Manager, comprehensive test planning and process software which will provide a single view into all aspects of a quality plan. With 100% distributed access and Web 2.0-based collaboration, this new software will trace the status of a project in the software delivery cycle to help key stakeholders prioritize issues for resolution.


These new offerings use will 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. Jazz is a collaborative technology which provides a platform of services enabling powerful integration by supporting interoperability across a broad array of collaborative application lifecycle management solutions.


The company is developing Jazz and future products in conjunction with the software development community at Jazz.net where members of the community can transparently collaborate, provide input on requirements, report bugs and ultimately contribute to the development of on the company’s software delivery platform. The community will drive the evolution of standards and common components incorporated in future IBM software releases.


Independent software vendors, through the Ready for IBM Rational software validation program, are working with the company on integrating and validating their offerings to the Rational Team Concert and other Rational Jazz-enabled offerings.


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. The software which helps teams collaborate in real time in the context of specific roles and processes includes automated data gathering resulting in significantly less documentation and provides real-time project health information required to reduce project risk.