News
Think outside the box and collaborate
MATR Sponsor (view all)
COMMENTARY–Recently, I was speaking with an executive of a leading software
company providing a Web Services software infrastructure. I asked the executive how
they were sharing information to meet their integration schedules with one of the
world’s top device manufacturers. With a wince of pain, I was told that the two
companies were zipping their software into files and sending them back and forth to each
other. His internal process was not much better. Unfortunately, this story is not an exception,
it’s the norm.
By Bill Portelli
Special to ZDNet
Stuck in an old way of doing things
For years, software development and integration were limited by "client-side" LAN based
development tools, by the lack of a high-speed Internet infrastructure, and by the lack of a
consistent process to enable active collaboration. Developers, integrators and users struggled
to communicate as companies merged, industries became more global, and time-to-market
and competitive pressures grew.
As a result, the software
industry has evolved into a
silo-based style of
development. Worse yet,
developers, integrators, and
users limit their expectations
of what can be achieved to
what they alone can
accomplish. One team
DEVELOPS software in
isolation. Other teams
INTEGRATE this software
into their systems, find bugs
and hope for fixes from the
first team. Finally, a third
organization waits patiently
to use and ADOPT the
resulting system. Of course,
these users find bugs too.
The result is a prolonged product adoption cycle for most software–whether it is a stand-alone
product, or part of an integrated system.
Of course, software-based systems do eventually reach the market. But, at what expense?
Integration partners and users routinely wait over a year before they see a stable product.
Innovation is limited. Enhancements and bug fixes can take months. In the meantime, the
competition can gain a firm foothold, users are frustrated, and everyone’s revenues suffer.
Thinking different
Fortunately, a solution has emerged. It is well documented that open source development
models, combined with high-speed Internet access and Web-based development tools, have
allowed groups of individuals and corporations to achieve remarkable gains in time-to-market,
innovation, developer loyalty and reduced development costs. This method of development has
now been generalized into a more broadly applicable Collaborative Software Development
paradigm. It works for any corporation within the feature, function, schedule, cost, intellectual
property restrictions, and most importantly, the development and business strategies of those
corporations.
Think outside your box
Businesses now have the ability to extend their development team and project "beyond their
firewall" and no longer confine their development imagination to what they alone can
accomplish. For the first time, development teams are actually securely developing and
integrating software in real time with their partners, users, and even independent development
organizations and standards bodies. These companies are gaining a competitive edge by
blending their business strategies into those of their closest partners.
The impact?
Collaborative Software Development is having a dramatic impact. It is speeding up the three
phases of the Software Business Cycle–from the development of software, to the integration of
customized software for new and existing systems and ultimate adoption by the end user.
For example, using this method of development, Hewlett Packard has cut development
schedules by weeks, partner integration cycles have been cut by months, and
internationalization time has been cut in half. In less than a year, 24 new software modules
were developed for Sun Microsystems’ NetBeans Platform, the basis for the NetBeans
Integrated Development Environment (IDE). Progress Software achieved a 4X improvement in
time-to-market for one of its products, the Internet Component Framework (ICF). Corporations
are also discovering new sources of revenue that are driven from the unprecedented impact of
partner innovation.
And all of this has been accomplished by thinking outside the box–by securely involving
partners and clients in the development process. All of the companies who participate in this
new integrated Software Business Cycle are gaining a competitive advantage, generating
long-term revenue and increasing market share.
Bill Portelli is a published author and CEO of collaborative software development company
CollabNet (www.collab.net).
MATR Supporters (view all)