Borland offers software requirements definition

17.04.2006
Not to be confused with requirements management, Borland Software on Monday is introducing a requirements definition package as part of the company's application lifecycle management arsenal.

Borland's Caliber DefineIT focuses on the definition stage of application development.

"The situation is that research still [shows] that requirements are the biggest point of failure for software delivery," said Matt Klassen, Borland senior product marketing manager.

DefineIT provides a flowchart for requirements definition and captures business scenarios. Developers can visually specify requirements and execute graphical storyboards. The product also generates test cases for validating quality within the software lifecycle, Borland said. DefineIT will be able to integrate with multiple requirements management tools.

Previously, Borland has offered CaliberRM, for requirements management. "It did not help you visualize the requirements and therefore, [it] was not as effective as it could have been," Borland said.

DefineIT allows for visually capturing client requirements, said Mac Felsing, co-founder of Borland reseller and integrator Process Exchange.

"It takes the burden of doing the translating out of the hands of the user," Felsing said.

Additionally, Borland will offer Caliber Analyst, providing a superset of requirements definition and management and featuring both Caliber DefineIT and Caliber RM.

Caliber DefineIT costs $2,000 per named user. Caliber Analyst costs US$3,000 per user. Both Analyst and DefineIT are available on May 5.

DefineIT and Caliber Analyst are being introduced as part of Borland's overarching Requirements Definition and Management solution, which features these products as well as process improvement and training services. Requirements Definition and Management is part of Borland's Software Delivery Optimization strategy for ALM.