Eclipse Foundation and Serena Software Announce Approval of
Eclipse Application Lifecycle Framework Project
OTTAWA, ONTARIO, CANADA and SAN MATEO, CA - July 27, 2005 - The
Eclipse Foundation, an open source community committed to the implementation
of a universal development platform, and Serena Software, Inc. (Nasdaq:
SRNA), the world's largest company solely focused on managing change in
the IT environment, today announced that the Application Lifecycle Framework
(ALF) project, an Eclipse technology project and proposed by Serena on
April 30 of this year, has been approved by the Eclipse. The ALF project
will address the universal problem of integrating Application Lifecycle
Management (ALM) technologies so that they provide full inter-operability,
including shared ownership of business processes and data transformation
from domain to domain. Traditionally tools have integrated to the Eclipse
framework as Eclipse plug-ins; this project extends the framework to become
the fundamental infrastructure for tool to tool interoperability.
"The goal of Eclipse is to create a universal development platform
to enable global enterprises to develop software more efficiently,"
said Mike Milinkovich, Executive Director of the Eclipse Foundation, Inc.
"Projects such as this one enable vendors and users alike to provide
the vision, innovation and resources to enhance the Eclipse platform.
We are looking forward to watching this technology project develop, mature
and create even more opportunities for users to further support their
ALM development initiatives."
The Eclipse Platform provides a universal development platform, component
model and extensibility framework for tools integration. The Eclipse Application
Lifecycle Framework will extend the Eclipse platform to enable meta-data
interoperability and tool choreography that span the entire application
development lifecycle. The result will be an Eclipse open source framework
that allows ISVs to tightly integrate entire ALM suites or individual
ALM products on the widely deployed Eclipse platform, making it easier
for developers to manage application changes across the lifecycle, easily
and cost-effectively.
Serena is leading a growing community of technology vendors and ALM users
that have collaborated on the definition, planning and implementation
of this project and are now beginning its implementation. As the ALF project
matures, other entities are encouraged to participate as committers, users
and developers to assist in the architecture, planning, requirements and
testing of ALF and further increase the value proposition of Eclipse for
application developers.
"Serena is committed to creating solutions that help organizations
manage IT change across the application lifecycle," said Kevin Parker,
Vice President of Market Development at Serena. "By leading and driving
this effort, Serena is helping to form and shape the outcome of the ALF
project and thus the future of the industry, through a framework that
allows vendors and customers to maximize productivity from their chosen
ALM technologies. We aim to eliminate the shortcomings of point-to-point
integrations and provide the interoperability needed to successfully manage
customer application lifecycles."
Kevin Kernan, CEO of Secure Software commented, "Developers have
been long seeking an ALM infrastructure that can assure interoperability
among the technologies used to create applications. The ALF project will
enable developers to use a broader set of ALM tools that are more integrated
and collaborative than ever to improve the quality of the solutions developed.
Serena's leading role in the ALF project will help drive additional participation
from companies with a unique value proposition to the project, to truly
deliver on ALM's promise to its customers."
The ALF project is now forming Architecture, Requirements and Planning
committees and is seeking vendors and customers to participate. The project
timeline is being developed and the initial plan would see a prototype
version of the framework being made available for testing by customers
and vendors around the end of the calendar year. The first full version
will be delivered in 2006 by which time a rich ecosystem of partners and
vendors will have formed around the project. For more information on the
Eclipse ALF project, please visit: http://www.eclipse.org/alf.
Anyone who wishes to express interest in participating in the project
should contact the newsgroup at news://news.eclipse.org/eclipse.technology.alf.
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