Bill founded RTTS is the spring of 1996 as a premium brand professional services firm that specializes in improving the software quality process by using test automation. Bill works out of the New York headquarters and lives in Westchester NY with his wife and 2 sons.
Business Intelligence Goes Mainstream
The ‘new new thing’ that is growing at a rapid pace is Business Intelligence (BI). It’s white hot and all of the big boys in enterprise software are racing each other to get there. IBM bought Applix, Cognos and SPSS and is incorporating these technologies (specifically the Cognos engine) into its’ other software brands. SAP bought Business Objects and is doing the same. Oracle bought Hyperion. SAS Institute built its business around it and Microsoft is big into BI. And HP is doing a dance with Informatica, as seen in their recent partner press release.
According to Wikipedia, Business Intelligence (BI) refers to technologies (and people and processes) used to help a business acquire a better understanding of its commercial context. BI really started in the realm of data warehousing and data marts, but is moving rapidly into any data store that can provide critical information to your business. We have already seen this upfront and personal, with IBM’s new Rational Insight product, garnered from the Cognos purchase, already making its way into products like ClearCase, Rational Quality Manager and MS Project, along with XML data sources.
So why now? What is driving this? That’s easy. Businesses are always looking for real-time information that can consolidate metrics and provide analytical data that make it easier for them to determine the direction they take, and thus, provide a competitive advantage. And in the past, most software vendors were pretty poor at performing this task. Ask anyone using enterprise tools what they think of the reporting and analytics and they will roll their eyes, curse and then tell you about the cool stuff they have done in Excel. Well, that’s all about to change. BI is rolling out to an enterprise tool near you and your competition is either getting ready to utilize this information or already is using it to gain a competitive advantage. So either get on the wagon or get run over by it. Either way – it’s (main) streaming down the road….
I was at my younger son's baseball game the other day and the game was running a bit longer than usual. My older son called me with his cell phone to see when I was getting home, because I would be barbequing and he wanted to eat. My wife called me to ask me the same question. Also, one of my friends text messaged me to see how the game was going, as it was a playoff game and his son is in the same league. I also took pictures of my son's 1st at -bat and then filmed his second at-bat with my Blackberry Smart Phone so I could show it to him after the game. In between innings I browsed through my emails for work and then checked the latest score on the Yankees/Mets game.
Then it struck me - when did the technology of work and home life blend together? Did I miss it? I had been reading about convergence for a long time, but it just occurred to me that it happened in such a sneaky, unsuspecting way, that it had crept into every part of our lives. My kids listen to iPods and play every game system imaginable, my Tivo that I had suped up runs on Linux. We all have flat screen TVs evolved from computer monitors. My Blackberry had become a camera, camcorder, browser and game system. Co-workers can always find me at home and family and friends can always find me at work. Now our work and home lives have been hopelessly intertwined with the same technology. Life will never be the same – for better and worse.
Over the last 12 – 18 months, the application life cycle and accompanying tools have gotten much play and adaptation in the marketplace. And – it’s white hot.
Application Lifecycle Management (or ALM) is defined as the process of software development as an iterative cycle and is coordinated through the use of software products. ALM can increase productivity, improve quality, promote collaboration among teams in different locations, speed up the development and test cycles and decrease costs.
A lead analyst at one of the top firms recently told me that 55-60% of all development and test management is managed and tracked in Microsoft Office.Wow!As someone who has been on projects that use MS Office as the primary ALM toolset, implementing these new ALM tools should REALLY improve communication and information sharing along with providing reporting across assets. Welcome to the new millennium!
Typical ALM suites are role-based and provide software for requirements, transaction/use case/user story definition, project management, development management, change management, test management, defect management, metrics gathering and analysis, monitoring and reporting, and role workflow and methodology.An ALM tool may have some or all of these features.
One of the first ALM tools that we used was Test Director from Mercury Interactive, now part of the QualityCenter suite at HP.Originally geared towards testers and now with a refocus towards business analysts and developers, Test Director provided a view of ALM through a quality prism and provided a central data store for requirements, test cases, manual test runs and defects with a distributed architecture (i.e. web) for the new distributed software dev teams.It was (and is) easy-to-use, web-based and provided a great central information area.
Other enterprise players that have joined the game include Borland, Microsoft (with its Visual Studio Team System), Seapine and MKS.Now IBM has joined in with its Jazz platform (Team Concert for developers, Requirements Composer for BAs and Quality Manager for testers). I would not be surprised to learn that Oracle is either developing (less likely) or looking to purchase (more likely) an ALM tool to compliment it’s entry into the development and test space with its tools for dev and test acquired from Sun and Empirix respectively.
And there’s more.The small and medium sized businesses have their tools to chose from also.There is Artisan and Lighthouse and Rally and others.Not to mention TOMOS Software, which just won Gartner’s “Cool Tools in Application Development 2009” and is a SaaS based solution (and was incubated here).
So this movement by the vendors of dev and test products in this direction is good news for all of you practitioners out there who have struggled aggregating information and tried to make sense out of all of the information that is needed to determine the progress and health of an application under build. Now all you need to do is pick the right tool for your needs and get going and you’re on your way to a more efficient software process.
Please comment if you are already using an ALM tool and let us know what you think of it!
For the last couple of years I have been coaching NFL-sponsored 5-on-5 flag football for my younger son (who is 8). In the first 2 years, coaches were allowed on the field, which made it easy to diagram plays in the huddle that made sense to 6 and 7 year-olds. This year, since we moved up a division to 8-10 year olds, the coaches must call plays from the sidelines. That made the visualization of diagramming plays on a hand-held whiteboard impossible, what with only 30 seconds in between plays.
So utilizing my background in software, I created a Plan, a strategy document that provides visualization of what we were trying to execute. I started by first providing a visual of each pass route (i.e. ‘square in’, ‘post’ or ‘button hook’) and then showed different formations (‘trips right’, ‘twins left and running back back’ or ‘stack back’) and then combined the formations with the pass patterns to form a play.Now everyone understands what we are trying to do and is on the same page (even 8-year-olds!).And during the game we strategize to call plays that will produce the results we are looking for depending on our desired outcome and calculating the risk involved for each play (i.e. interceptions).
If this works for 8-year-olds, why not for software testing?This is no different than creating a Test Plan, or strategy document, that outlines the approach to testing, the strategy utilized and the expected outcomes, depending on the risks (security, usability, performance, etc.). Yet I constantly observe that software projects do not have formal test plans that provide all participants (stakeholders) with the strategy (choice of plays), structure (plays and patterns) or desired results (first down or touchdown) of the tests.Believe me, if you want to be successful in developing and testing software (or in flag football), create a plan that keeps everyone informed.
By the way, we currently stand at 2 wins, 2 losses and 1 tie (we tied the only undefeated team) with by far the youngest team in the league. And everyone plays the same amount of time and everyone has fun. For those not familiar with organized kids’ sports, everyone sharing time and having fun is usually not a path to success (see ‘Kicking and Screaming’ with Will Ferrell about kids’ soccer). But with a plan, we’re getting it done.Good job, kids!!!
What a mess. Mortgages were sold to people who couldn't afford them by companies who sold them to other companies who resold them to firms who repackaged them to others who created new instruments and resold them and now no one can pay anyone and the entire US economy is about to come crashing down. Does that about cover it?
Some of Lehman's assets, including 10,000 employees are being acquired by Barclay's, which means 14,000 people will be on the streets. Bear Stearns is already a memory, with the employees scattered around other brokerages, hedge funds and smaller players. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are becoming banks to survive. And AIG is teetering on the brink of extinction.
About once every 8 years Wall Street comes up with a new gimmick to make money and ends up shooting itself (and everyone else) in the foot. The junk bond scandal, the savings and loans, the dot com "new new economy" and now the sub-prime stuff.
Which means the brokerage industry that I grew up working in and with is no longer. A self-inflicted gun shot wound to the head - this time a kill shot. RIP Wall Street. You'll never be the same. And you did it to yourself. Again....
I recently went to 2 conferences: Software Test and Performance (in San Mateo, CA) and STAR East (in Orlando). I noticed an interesting trend at these shows.
There was the proliferation of new companies offering test-related tools that either competed with the big boys (HP, IBM, Microsoft, Borland, Compuware) or provided something in a different slant. Companies covering code analysis, security testing, application monitoring, test management, and traditional automated functional and load testing were everywhere. What this leads me to believe is that the software testing industry is still growing and thriving with new products that may be hitting the market under the noses of the primary players. It has always been the path of the big boys to see what the market needs, keep an eye on the new up-and-coming software firms and then swoop in and buy one to enter the marketplace (See HP's and IBM's acquisitions of SPI Dynamics and Watchfire last year in the application security testing space). The IPO is dead thanks to Sarbenes-Oxley, but the targeting of a takeover is the new way for these ISV's to get to the end game.
We are entering the age of relevance of the Tester. Since the adoption of the agile processes (XP, Scrum, etc.) and the slow death of the waterfall process, Testers are finally getting a seat at the table of IT. So, as application lifecycle management (ALM) adds the quality component, that means more focus on the Tester role and more tools to make that role successful.
All in all, the Tester and the tools for the Tester are at an all-time boom. Enjoy new-found respect, job stability and growth, you previously unappreciated toilers of software!
Since this is the holiday season and I am in the spirit, I figured I would apply a tried-and-true way from my childhood of getting my wishes fulfilled.With that in mind…
Dear Santa:
I was good this year (I think) and I was hoping you could help me out with my wishes.Below is a partial list.Feel free to use your infinite discretion.
1)A PC that does not freeze on me every other day.I know I have asked for this in the past, but no matter how many upgrades and state-of-the-art purchases I make, I still freeze up.
2)A clean desk.I know you did not mess it up, but whatever you could do to fix this issue would be greatly appreciated by me (and my co-workers).
3)Test tools that are way too complicated for people to use.Enough with the wizards and stuff in the tools.Give me tools that only consultants can figure out.
4)Vendor conferences at different times of the year in exotic locales.Why do all the vendors have them in May and June? And why in the desert in summer? How about the Bahamas in winter? That works for me!
5)While we’re on the vendors, how about deals with no paperwork.No more 50 forms and 22 acronyms inputted into 30 different systems.One email and that’s it.
6)Can you make cell phones with ear zappers?If you talk on the train/bus while others are around, you get zapped.
7)I need a “Guide to the Y Generation” book.What’s with YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, etc? Let’s force people to have to speak face to face, not Facebook to Facebook. (I should put that comment on my LinkedIn page).
8)Anabolic steroids and HGH for my Knicks. Hey - if it works for Bonds and Clemens, why not?They can’t be any worse.
9)While we’re on sports, how about blinders for my Dallas Cowboys’ Tony Romo? Every time he looks into the stands at Carrie Underwood and Jessica Simpson, he stops looking at T.O. and Witten!
10)A customer who would like a 10-year deal for as many people as we have.
11)A golf club that hits a ball straight.The ones I have bought all seem to be damaged.
12)A fantasy football season where one of my top guys does not break his leg (see Willie Parker and all of my other players over the past).
13)A fantasy tester game where RTTS people are picked in the first round.
14)Oh yeah.One more.Peace on earth and good will towards men (and women and children).
I just read that the Nintendo Wii outsold the Sony Playstation 3 by a ratio of 4 to 1. I am very familiar with the game console systems since my sons (10 and 7) are real gamers. They have the Wii, Playstation 2, GameCube (the Wii's predecessor), PSP (handheld), Nintendo DS (handheld) and the old Nintendo GameBoy Advanced, along with a computer (Dell's XPS) that was specifically designed to play games. Did I just list 7 different gaming systems for my kids?
What happened to playing outside with your friends? Now it's play dates or gaming and there is also the hybrid - a play date that includes gaming. I know Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft are making buku bucks from selling these systems and there are some really interesting games, but how did this happen? And why are we enabling this? I even know 2 adults who work all day and then play some online game all night long. I know other adults who are gaming junkies.
I miss the days when, as kids, we would pick up a ball and bat and play baseball all day long with all the rest of the kids in the neighborhood. Or football or basketball or soccer or tag or some other active, competitive game. Now it's the Wii or PS3 or computer games. Not that there aren't competitive video games and not that the kids don't break a sweat (I actually saw my sons sweating from boxing on the Wii). It just seems like this is fundamentally wrong. But just try taking it away from the kids and they cry about how all of their friends have systems and why they will be ostracized for not having the latest and greatest games.
Maybe I can take a negative and create a positive. Maybe I can contact Sony and Nintendo and Microsoft and see if my kids can become beta testers for the games. And maybe I can bill them out as gaming experts. Maybe we can make extra money and put it away for college. Or maybe I can use the money to buy that flat screen TV with the great graphics that I have my eye on. That would work great with my Xbox…
I just got back into the office after spending the last 4 business days working from home. Apparently a "steam-pipe blast blew a 15-by-25-foot crater in a midtown street (7/17), spewing a geyser of near-boiling water, gluey muck and rocks 120 feet into the air and onto terrified spectators as they ran for their lives". We're at 360 Lexington Avenue, between 40th and 41st Streets in Manhattan.
Anyway, because of the advent of VPN and remote desktop, IM and cell phones, working from home is supposed to be "the next best thing to being there", or so it is stated. What I have been reminded since I last worked more than 1 day in-a-row from home (back during the 9/11 aftermath), is that it is not.
The lack of face-to-face social interaction with co-workers replaced with email and instant messenger just doesn't do it for me. Yes, the wife, kids and dog come in and out of the office and remind me that I am not alone in the house. But it's not the same.
And it got me to thinking about firms and projects that use remote workers, along with this mode of communication and interaction, as a defacto standard. Where is the time when you get to know each other, understand each other's likes and dislikes, strong points and weaknesses and compliment each other? Where is the give-and-take banter that promotes teamwork and loyalty? It isn't there and no one can convince me otherwise. Using IM shorthand such as brb, l8r, rofl and symbols such as :)) and ^_^ leaves me feeling :/ ( frustrated) and just doesn't cut it. And the feeling of disconnection that borders on isolation just does not seem to me to be a great way to work.
Anyhow, the office re-opened today and even with the commute, the hole in the ground in front of the building and all the other issues with working in a bustling metropolis, I am happy to be back in the office. IM, email and text messaging all have their places, but I'll take a good water cooler conversation with a real person face-to-face any old day.
OK. I finally have (somewhat) recuperated from my whirlwind tour of Compuware in Detroit, IBM in Orlando and HP in Las Vegas for the last 3 weeks (not to mention STAR East 2 weeks before Compuware and 2 weddings on the weekends between all of the conferences and a brief vacation to the Chesapeake Bay area).
My first stop was Detroit and Compuware for the Partner Summit. Compuware again has shown that they get technology. Some of their offerings convince me that they are going in the right direction for customers. Optimal Delivery Manager is the type of dashboard that will allow users to manage test activities from project management to requirements to functional and performance test activities – providing much needed traceability. It borrows some of the key features of Changepoint (their PPM offering) and provides an ability to manage all facets of testing. Peter Karmanos, the founder and CEO of Compuware, was the primary keynote. ‘Pete’ (as he is admiringly known throughout Compuware) reminds me a bit of Jack Welsh, the gruff and brilliant ex-CEO of GE, in that he is says what he thinks. It was interesting for me, seeing someone who started a firm as I did and actually take it to a place where it is global in scope and hitting revenue numbers that well exceed $1 billion. Stephanie Moore of Forrester Research ended the conference with an interesting take on why outsourcing to India is failing and how niche firms who specialize are successful.
The next stop was IBM and the IBM Rational Software Conference in Orlando. From our perspective, there was approximately a 50% increase in the number of partners there. So IBM, who wins many awards for their approach to partnerships, has really (and finally!) infiltrated their concepts into the Rational group. From a quality perspective, the new version of Rational Performance Tester (RPT) has really become a ready-for-primetime player in the load/performance/scalability tools arena. The latest release adds IP aliasing, root cause analysis, additional protocol support (for Citrix, SIP, Seibel 9.8, mySAP and SAP GUI), and has added SOA quality testing. Rational Functional Tester (RFT) has added support for Infragistics, AJAX, .Net, Firefox and Adobe Flash/Flex. IBM is also going after the process market with a quality process management tool that provides traceability with requirements and defects. IBM sees a differentiation between the quality initiatives of subject matter experts, implementers and coders/testers and is working towards providing each with tools for assisting in the testing field. And IBM feels there is a huge need for process. IBM also announced 2 acquisitions – Watchfire and Telelogic (more on this in a later blog).
The last stop was the HP Software Universe at the Venetian in Las Vegas. We were interested to see how the previously named Mercury Interactive, the biggest player in the testing space, had been assimilated. The answer - Mercury is gone. It's all HP now. At the keynote speech by Mark Hurd, the CEO of HP, my thought was “is there a more impressive CEO in the technology field than Mark Hurd?” If there is one, I haven’t seen him/her. He is a straight-shooting, no-bull type of leader. Mr. Hurd explained that HP needed to automate much of its business before it could preach this to its customers. HP’s goal is to reduce the cost of IT for itself and its customers and highlighted 5 areas of improvement: (1) increase efficiencies and automation, (2) the needs of business outweigh the ability to deliver, (3) improve quality, (4) speed and agility matter, and (5) reduce risk. HP then highlighted how they would accomplish these issues. There seems to be a big play to integrate Quality Center tightly with requirements and traceability. HP is also very interested in the data warehouse sector. Their recent release of NeoView, a data warehousing appliance, will have a significant impact on the lower end of the marketplace, especially in pharma. And HP’s SOA strategy, which ties its previous acquisition of Systinet (for SOA governance) with QACenter (for quality) and Business Availability Center (for management) to me, is the most complete end-to-end solution in the marketplace. Very impressive. And HP, on the heels of the previous week’s announcement by IBM of its purchase of a security firm (Watchfire), announced the acquisition of SPI Dynamics, an RTTS alliance partner.
In summary, it is interesting to note that the major vendors have moved away from a ‘software testing’ message to now more of an ‘application lifecycle quality management’ (ALQM) message (as has RTTS). Both IBM and HP preach increased speed and agility of the business needs of customers. All three vendors (including Compuware) are in a rush to get SOA solutions firmly entrenched in the mindshare of customers. All three are touting traceability and management oversight by tying their project and portfolio tools to the ALQM space. All now have solutions for security testing of applications (Compuware has application security testing wrapped in its DevPartner tools). Borland and other smaller players seem to be getting left in the dust. The 4th big player (Microsoft) is making a very aggressive play in the marketplace via Visual Studio Team System and has the distribution channel (the Visual Studio platform) to pull it off. In seeing the ‘big three’ present their views of the software quality world, I see much more consolidation coming this way, with companies and products being added from the automated build, change management and operations sectors being acquired to complete the offerings. Let’s see where the marketplace goes and who is left standing in 12 months. My prediction is there will only be 3 big players left in the ALQM space.
I just got back from 3 weeks of conferences (Compuware Partner Conference, IBM Rational Software Conference, HP Software Universe) and was in on the Disney compound for Rational when the last episode of the Sopranos ran. Disney does not have a deal with HBO, so believe it or not, nowhere on their property could we see the last episode. Luckily Joe Mundy, RTTS' Southeast Regional Manager, lives in Orlando and we were able to persuade (beg) him to have us over. My take on the "black out" ending by David Chase is this: he copped out in case he wants to do a feature movie. This way he can say no one was killed and he can bring Silvio out of his coma.
Since I have been watching it since the beginning and since it was not completed, I would like to finish it for Mr. Chase. Here goes...
Two hit men were sent in to do the job. AJ goes first. I am tired of his act. Tony and Carmella go together, in each other's arms. As the hit men are leaving, they notice Meadow coming in. They bump her off also. Now - just to clean up any lose ends via the Soprano family, one shooter pays a visit to Janice and gives her the Adriana treatment (is everyone as sick of Janice as I am?). The other goes to the hospital and gives Sil the Christopher Maltisanti breathing course. As he is leaving after the hit, he places a call to his boss to inform him that the task has been completed. Cut to Paulie Walnuts putting down the phone, smoking a cigar and toasting himself as the new boss. Now - fade to black.
Monday signifies the main thrust of my conference travel season. For those who travel frequently for business - my condolences. Between the 2 hour early arrival to the security people dumping out my after-shave because it was more than 2.5 ounces (and more money than I care to think about), travel has become a tiring affair. And what happened to food and movies on the planes? Now all we get are 1 bag of peanuts and "Everybody Loves Raymond". At least they still serve Bloody Marys :).
Two weeks ago we were sponsors at STAR East in Orlando. Monday kicks off our alliance partner tour. First stop - Detroit and a visit to the Compuware Partner Summit. While Detroit cannot be confused with Honolulu or Las Vegas, there are casinos to have some fun in and Compuware shows us a good time. Bob Donald will be our host and always makes for interesting happenings. Compuware has some new offerings and is creating a new marketing message, so we'll see how that all plays out. I was also hoping to catch a Pistons / Spurs NBA finals game, but, as of this writing, the Pistons don't seem to want to hold up their end of the deal. If they can't beat a Cleveland team with LeBron and a bunch of guys who couldn't make my high school team, then I guess I will have to watch Duncan, Ginobili and Eva Longoria's boy toy pound the Cavs into submission.
The following week brings us back to Orlando and our 13th trip to the IBM Rational User Conference (and about my 7th or 8th time at the Swan and Dolphin). We have been sponsors and attendees since IBM was Rational and Rational was SQA. The RUC gives us a chance to hook up with Jeff Schuster and the rest of the test tool dev team for a "look-see" at what they have been up to. We have been beta testing their SOA testing component and like what we see so far. It also means us taking Jeff out for a 54 ounce steak dinner at Shula's or other home of a gargantuan side of beef. Jeff is always on some kind of Atkins-like diet and prefers to clog his arteries with a half of a cow. IBM is spinning a more complete story, if not the most complete story of the entire application lifecycle management space. They are marching towards complete lifecycle traceability and should have some interesting stuff to show us.
The last leg is in Vegas and the HP Software Universe. As I mentioned in a previous blog, it should be interesting to see how HP "does software". Many of the senior Mercury guys are long gone, so this will truly be HP's show. We will have a booth and will be sure to speak with clients to see how the change affects them.
I'll post my thoughts and opinions when I have decompressed from the 3 conferences and can figure out where I am. Until then, does anyone have a bag of peanuts?
I attended STAR East last week in Orlando, which is sponsored by SQE, who are the publishers of Better Software Magazine and StickyMinds.com. What I realized is how international in flavor the show felt. It seems that after all of this time, software quality has finally become mainstream worldwide as part of the application lifecycle.
I had a thoroughly enjoyable dinner with Theresa Lanowitz of Voke, the premier analyst in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) space. We discussed the direction of the software quality industry and other topics, such as the great information that Theresa provides at Voke, along with RTTS’ future direction in the ALM space. I also realized that Theresa grew up in Pittsburgh and I am a life-long Cowboys fan! The horrible flashback of Roger Staubach and the men with the stars on their heads losing twice to Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Mean Joe Greene and the rest of the Steelers. Those of you old enough to remember can understand the pain!
I had an interesting conversation with Yochai Hacohen and Rafi Benami of Radview. They have released a version of their WebLoad performance tool as open source and are hoping that it becomes the dominant opens source tool in its space. Our performance division has always liked the functionality and power of WebLoad, so we will take a look at it to see if it fits into our strategy.
I also met with Michelle Davidson, Site Editor of SearchSoftwareQuality.com (TechTarget) and Holly Bourquin, Director of Publishing of SQE. Both publications sport online resources that are excellent for information regarding software quality. Michelle and I spoke about the need for tools and documented strategies for testing Software Oriented Architectures (SOA) specifically web services. RTTS has been testing web services successfully for years and our resident guru Jeff Bocarsly wrote an excellent white paper on it documenting what SOA is and our approach to testing it.
In 2 weeks the RTTS team goes on the road for 3 weeks is a row to the Compuware Partner Conference (Detroit), the Rational Software Development Conference (Orlando again – our 13th year there!) and then we finish with a trip to the HP Software Universe show (at the Venetian in Las Vegas – what goes on in Vegas…). We should all be ready to collapse by then. Well, I’m off to 2 little league games for my boys. I hope they faire better than the Yanks (lost to the Mets last night).
Welcome to my new blog! The goal is to provide some insight into RTTS' vision as it relates to business and technology happenings while also delving into my personal day-to-day fun.
On to blogging....
We're all waiting to see what happens in the world of HP. Since the Mercury takeover, it's been pretty quiet. Customers, competitors and users are constantly asking us if we have heard anything. It will be interesting to see if there is a refocus regarding product direction, since Mercury (now HP) is clearly the market leader in test tools. When IBM purchased Rational way back in '03, there was a 2-year time frame where Rational employees were leaving due to the culture change from a mid-size to a giant firm and Big Blue was integrating itself into the day-to-day business. Rational products were almost frozen in time. This may happen again with Mercury. Competitors are definitely using this time to attack their existing base. We at RTTS will be heading out to HP Universe in Las Vegas to hear the new vision. It should be interesting.
