Micro Focus has released a new suite of change management tools in the shape of Borland StarTeam in its version 12.0 release. The release attempts to bring greater "interoperability" into application lifecycle management (ALM) tools and asset types across software development teams. By ALM interoperability, what Micro Focus really means is bringing cross-tool visibility to developers to reduce inefficient collaboration practices.
Borland StarTeam has always provided management support for a wide range of ALM asset types including:
- version controlled files
- customizable change requests
- tasks
- requirements
- threaded discussions
The new suite extends the types of ALM assets that an organization can place under management, giving it access to a larger (and potentially) much more valuable repository. The inclusion of the new Borland Connector adds ALM tool interoperability to the product, making it possible for a more diverse group of ALM practitioners to directly participate and contribute to the developer's work scope.
Micro Focus says that Borland StarTeam 12.0 automatically connects developers and their code to any other change management artifact, enabling teams to participate in the flow of software delivery to end users. By making it easier to extend the types of software assets that can be managed, StarTeam enables organizations to better shape their ALM environment according to their unique development tool landscape and methodology needs.
"With this new release of StarTeam, customers now have constant management visibility across their ALM infrastructure," said Archie Roboostoff, Borland portfolio director. "Whether it's open source coexistence or a need to support a more agile environment, StarTeam is the single source of truth (with real-time updates happening across any combination of ALM systems and tools) that links everything together and delivers true distributed team collaboration."
Key benefits and features of StarTeam 12.0:
- Extendable ALM assets: StarTeam 12.0 help teams take control of their SCCM infrastructure by allowing users to extend the definition of which ALM assets can be managed.
- Consolidated Visibility: With Tasktop Sync, organizations can now view all artifacts, custom or otherwise, from third-party tools, bringing them into the same unified presentation as native StarTeam artifacts.
- Development Efficiency: With Tasktop Dev, developers are able to stay in their IDE where they are most productive, but still participate in the processes and workflows that management needs.
- ALM Synchronization: StarTeam is supported by the industry-standard Eclipse Mylyn ALM interoperability framework, which provides real-time synchronization, configurable automatic conflict resolution, and support for more than two dozen ALM tools' tracking and reporting facilities.
