IBM Rational Readies Next Version of Flagship Product Suite

Kicking off the IBM Rational Software Development User Conference, in Grapevine, Texas, general manager of IBM Rational (and co-founder of Rational Software) Mike Devlin unveiled plans for the next iteration of Rational's flagship product suite for managing the life cycle of applications, cradle to grave. Set to debut by year's end, the products, now code-named Atlantic, will mark a milestone for Rational, which early this year was charged with integrating its entire portfolio (as well as IBM's other toolsets) into the open-source Eclipse development environment. The upcoming Atlantic release signals near completion of that process, which involved tying products into other tools and interfaces residing within Eclipse, Devlin says.

Also of note, Atlantic will feature support for UML 2.0, the latest version of the modeling language standard widely associated with the well-known Rational Rose product. UML 2.0 extends software modeling to business processes, data and embedded systems, according to Devlin. Modeling itself has become the rage among developers as a mechanism to visually map out and design application components and spot their interdependencies -- before actual code-writing commences. Microsoft, which has long lagged behind in the space, recently announced plans for a modeling tool in the upcoming Visual Studio 2005. Borland, by virtue of its acquisition of TogetherSoft, is the other main player in the modeling space.

Rational's Atlantic sports several other enhancements as well, including greater support for C++ programming, Java Server Faces, Linux and new user interfaces. The company is also aggressively investing in software testing, hoping to reverse a historic tendency by many developers to consider testing of code almost an afterthought. Last, the company is boosting its remote-access support for individual developers working on a joint project.

Devlin says the raft of product initiatives reflect IBM's full digestion of Rational, which it acquired for $2.1 billion approximately 18 months ago. It was a faster-than-usual corporate integration involving field sales forces, partners and products. It was a process not without its pain points, he says.

"We said we wanted to move quickly after the acquisition closed, and, as a result, last year was painful for our team because we compressed integration into one year," Devlin says. "We did accomplish it, though. The IBM/Rational integration is history, in our point of view."

Now, he says,the focus is on building enhanced products and growing the business. Since joining IBM, Devlin says Rational has won much larger deals than it would ever have on its own.

As for the channel, that's another matter. In large part due to the nature of its products, Rational has traditionally sold direct, with 75 percent of its business today still derived in that fashion. Those partners they do count tend to be global systems integrators; ISVs, which IBM is courting heavily as go-to-market partners, in the Rational world are deemed customers.

Going forward, Devlin says his group is taking a cautious approach to the channel, wanting to make certain that partners who resell its highly technical life cycle solution are adequately trained and certified. In addition, Rational is being integrated into many of IBM's existing PartnerWorld programs.

"We are trying to select the right partners," he says. On the Lotus front, IBM made a number of tools announcements aimed at jump-starting development for the new Workplace collaboration and ric- client products. They include:

• WebSphere Studio Device Developer 5.7, which lets developers build and extend enterprise applications to a range of devices from desktops to mobile clients;
• Workplace Builder, which lets business users with novice app-dev skills assemble reusable software components into Workplace applications;
• Workplace API Toolkit, which lets ISVs integrate their products into the Workplace platform; and
• Workplace Designer, which gives users a visual scripting tool to create standalone applications or complement those already crafted in Workplace Builder.