12/11/2003

iRise, an enterprise software and services company “dedicated to bridging the communication gap between business and IT,” introduced what it calls a “major” initiative aimed at offering the iRise Application Simulator platform to organizations engaged in large-scale IT outsourcing.

iRise says its Application Simulator “enables business users to validate requirements and test drive software prior to development, allows business analysts to create a functionally rich, data-aware, interactive simulation of Web applications without a single line of code, supports remote collaboration in the requirements definition process, and eliminates up to 30 percent of development costs overall.

“For most of the Fortune 1000, IT outsourcing is an active topic, if not an active process. Driven by the need to save money, increase productivity and align IT with business goals, outsourcing carries with it a degree of risk and the potential for a loss of control. Application requirements specifications effectively become mutual ‘service level agreements’ and set expectations for the new corporate relationship that exists between the definition and development phases. Additionally, handing off requirements to developers who are working remotely and less available for real-time communication demands increased focus on the clarity and completeness of specifications – particularly if a language barrier exists.

“By serving as a common communications medium at the earliest stages of the process, iRise Application Simulator acts as an enabling technology for offshore engagements, bridging gaps in language, time zones, and cultures – ensuring against the risks in offshore development and making the theoretical gains of outsourcing real. As the percentage of annual budgets earmarked for outsourced application development continues to increase with the adoption of global development, achieving those promised gains becomes a critical factor in reaching corporate profitability targets.”

"META Group research indicates that poor requirements gathering, analysis and management lead directly to 60-70 percent of G2000 project failures domestically, and the likelihood of problems occurring during requirements gathering is exacerbated during outsourcing, due to geographic, language, cultural and other barriers," said Melinda-Carol Ballou, senior research analyst at META Group, Inc., a research advisory service company with offices in Westborough, Mass. "Automated technology that facilitates communication about requirements between users and outsourcers is particularly salient for managers attempting to improve success rates and cut costs."

iRise says it “also enables organizations to move new, mission-critical development offshore, not just maintenance and migration efforts. Companies can likewise use simulations as the unambiguous specification during the request-for-proposal and vendor selection process.”

“Within an outsourced environment, having a stable development blueprint is more important than ever, and iRise Application Simulator is the first solution capable of being that blueprint,” said Emmet B. Keeffe III, CEO and co-founder, iRise “The globalization of information technology is here to stay. For organizations that have been considering going offshore, or already have offshore initiatives in place, it’s just smart to equip business analysts with iRise Application Simulator. Business analyst productivity and enabling technologies that support requirements, user acceptance and high-level design are even more critical for an outsourced development model.

“With iRise Application Simulator, you can give anyone, anywhere a precise, functionally rich simulation of the final application -- before any code is written,” Keeffe said. “Organizations usually expect to encounter problems in getting applications built offshore and consider that as part of the cost of doing business, which is why they accept re-coding misinterpreted requirements two or three times. But it doesn’t have to be that way. They can now cut out all those development iterations and build it right the first time.”

The benefits of simulation technology are “well known in industrial manufacturing and other sectors,” iRise asserts. “Microprocessors, buildings and aircraft are all conceived, designed and tested before construction begins. Given the long development cycles and high-stakes business bets of today's complex products and services, simulation is an effective means of validating ideas, concepts and details. Simulation is even more compelling for software development, whose construction is labor intensive and intrinsically error prone.

“As the globalization of IT continues distributed development teams must use new approaches and solutions that support the process discipline required to repeatedly deliver high-quality applications at lower cost. iRise Application Simulator helps organizations achieve the next level of process rigor, as defined by such initiatives as SEI’s Capability Maturity Model for Software, by establishing an infrastructure that institutionalizes effective software engineering and management processes across all projects.

“iRise Application Simulator provides a human language-independent, visual communication platform that allows remote users, business analysts, developers and quality assurance personnel to resolve requirements issues by “test driving” a simulated Web application instead of reading a document.”