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Borland's merger announcement with Segue Software on February 8 included the news that Borland plans to exit the tools business. Borland was born on and is well known for its software development tools. So it's a large change and makeover for the company. Read out more on interview with Rick Jackson...

Rick Jackson, senior vice president and chief marketing officer, is responsible for worldwide marketing activities at Borland. He brings over 20 years of software industry experience to Borland, having held executive-level positions in marketing, sales and business development. Mr. Jackson comes to Borland from BEA Systems where he was senior vice president responsible for worldwide marketing. Prior to joining BEA, Mr. Jackson worked with various venture capital firms in Silicon Valley as interim CEO and strategic adviser to their portfolio companies. He also served as President and CEO of Privada, a privacy services company for the financial services and health care industries. Previously, Mr. Jackson held executive marketing and business development roles with NetGravity – the pioneer in advertising and direct marketing management solutions for the internet, and mFactory – a multimedia tools company. He has held sales and marketing positions at Taligent, NeXT Computer Inc., and HP, and engineering roles at CADAM Inc., a leading CAD/CAM provider. Mr. Jackson holds a B.S. degree in computer science from California State University, Northridge.

SDA: Borland's merger announcement with Segue Software on February 8 included the news that Borland plans to exit the tools business. Borland was born on and is well known for its software development tools. So it's a large change and makeover for the company. Can you elaborate on the reasons for this shift of focus?

Rick Jackson (RJ): Borland has had a long and successful history of supporting software development, and that continues to be the case as we move forward. For many years, that support was best expressed via Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) focused on developer productivity. But the world of software has evolved dramatically. Most companies don’t just rely on software development, but also on the implementation of commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS), integration of existing applications, deployment of services in service-oriented architectures (SOA), etc. What our customers have told us is that developer productivity is not going to create the next breakthrough in successful software delivery, but a focus on a more managed discipline of delivering software projects based on best practices is essential. We see a real opportunity to leverage our expertise in software development and software process improvement to advance our Application Lifecycle Management solutions (ALM) to significantly improve the successful delivery of software projects that drive enhanced business value.

SDA: David I, VP of Developer Relations Worldwide made a statement that there is still plenty of money to be made in the tools space "If you give it enough care and attention". Can you elaborate on his statement? What developments do you see in the IDE future?

RJ: The world of technology is evolving at a rapid pace. Developers will continually strive to keep up with changes, to harness the power of new and emerging technologies, standards, and development practices. This in turn will drive continued demand for ongoing evolution of IDEs in particular. For example, with so much attention on SOA, we see tremendous potential in IDEs becoming more “service-aware”, and helping in the discovery, tailoring, and deployment of services.

SDA: Meanwhile, the company is getting ready to release its Gauntlet continuous building and testing automation system, with the goal of helping developers better manage the development process. Can you elaborate on how the product can achieve that objective?

RJ: Gauntlet is a great example of breakthrough ALM technology focused on improving the overall process of software delivery. It introduces an automated and structured approach to quality early in the development cycle. Gauntlet serves three main purposes:

Rick Jackson, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Borland.

• Developer Sandboxing – isolating teams from the work of other developers while ensuring quality standards are met prior to final check-in of developer changes;
• Automated Quality Processes – structuring and automating a set of automated “gauntlets”, or “gates”, that any check-in of software changes must pass prior to check-in, thus ensuring best practices and quality; and
• Management Visibility – aggregated results of all check-ins and gauntlets across development organizations, both local and distributed, in the form of management dashboards, with the ability to drill-down to specific developer activities. These 3 capabilities combined enable a structured approach to quality, with clear management visibility, in an automated fashion that actually improves developer productivity.

SDA: Meanwhile, the company is getting ready to release its Gauntlet continuous building and testing automation system, with the goal of helping developers better manage the development process. Can you elaborate on how the product can achieve that objective?

RJ: Certainly both Microsoft and IBM Rational provide ALM offerings to the marketplace. While Microsoft focuses on .Net development only, Borland enables a broader, heterogenous approach to managing enterprise software delivery. We also partner with Microsoft to fill missing capabilities in their overall suite of products, such as requirements definition and management. IBM Rational on the other hand is primarily focused on Websphere development and deployment. We see Borland’s unique industry position, as being heterogeneous and yet independent of target platform, being key to a broad set of enterprise customers.

SDA: Results of surveys from Borland, suggest that while IT organizations understand the importance of effective requirements management, perception differs from reality when it comes to how they go about gathering, defining and managing requirements. DO you see that as a challenge or an opportunity? How do you plan to change that?

RJ: Opportunity, without a doubt. Every key process in the business world was once done either manually, or thru the crude application of poor technology. Requirements elicitation, analysis, and management is in the early stages of technology application. Most companies have struggled with the application of tools such as Microsoft Word to this discipline. But the results speak in volumes:

• 82% of application rework is due to errors in requirements
• 44% of project cancellations is due to poor requirements

SDA: Hexaware Technologies a provider of BPO and IT services, and Borland Software India have announced an alliance under which Borland's Indian subsidiary will provide management solution services to Hexaware. Can you walk our readers through Borland’s plans in India and the Asia Pacific?

RJ: There is a tremendous growth in outsourced and offshore software delivery in the Asia Pacific. This implies a tremendous market for Borland’s ALM solutions. Borland’s solutions are also market leading in the support of Global Distributed Development. Our intent is to address this market-leading through a growing network of partners, that have local expertise and experience in the region, enabling a win-win strategy.

SDA: The two companies have also jointly launched a center in India at Hexaware in Chennai. This would be the first center set up by Borland in India with a partner as part of the company's new partner engagement model. What are the challenges in the Indian market, as Borland sees it?

RJ: Indian Software Vendors have been driving, crusading and endeavoring to master the entire business of Distributed Development - so it is no wonder that it is primarily a (software and services) exports driven market. Last year India's software and services exports market grew by 40%. Growth was essentially in offshoring and outsourcing. While major Indian System Integrators are winning million-dollar and billion-dollar deals and long term contracts, the challenge is compounding in this age of Global Distributed Development. This amplifies the need to balance well, the complexities and costs of modern-day software development, which are under enormous strain. It may well be the single most important trigger, forcing Indian System Integrators to look at it and bring in requisite changes in the way they build / maintain software.

Distributed development is a reality of life in today’s virtual world. According to the DiamondCluster International 2005 survey, nearly two-thirds of senior IT executives are planning to increase their outsourcing budget. We believe that with India being one of the biggest hubs for offshoring and outsourcing, a lot of this business is likely to come to the Indian System Integrators. But today, Indian System Integrators are under tremendous cost pressures due to the increasing trend in fixed-cost projects coupled with the need to deliver their projects within the given time, scope and to maintain high standards of quality.

Since Borland works very closely with the System Integrators in India, the challenge for us is to aptly position our solutions to help manage the expectations of SI and the End User organization at the same time. To help us achieve just that, we offer a proven, holistic, process-led approach to Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) to both tiers that combine process, people and technology to help organizations mitigate the pain, complexity and risk of distributed development.

Our vision of Software Delivery Optimization is to help align business with IT and to transform the software development process into a managed business process. We endeavor to:

• Appropriate individual and team training for distributed environments (People)
• Offer Process optimization services to formalize workflows and quality initiatives like CMMI and to handle the inevitable changes that occur throughout the software development lifecycle (Process)
• Provide solutions to facilitate, automate and control distributed development (Technology)