AST-0026309 Computer World - Application Rationalization - March 2009

8/6/2019 AST-0026309 Computer World - Application Rationalization - March 2009

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T E C H N O L O G YBR IEF INGS-------------------------------- ----------------------------------A P P L IC A T IO N D E V E L O P M E N TApplicationConsolidation:The Number One Business ImperativeEXECUTIVE SUMMARYC uttin g co sts to da y m ea ns m ore tha n jus t h ard ware co nso lid ation . O ne o f the b ig ges t o pp ortun itie s fo r C IO sto cu t cos ts n ow is a pp lica tio n ra tio na liza tion . B ut ho w d o you ge t com ple x con so lid atio n p ro jec ts m ov in gfo rw ard w ith th e b us in es s a nd g et th es e m is sio n-c ritic al in itia tiv es d on e fa ste r? V is ua liz atio n is a p ro ve ns tra te gy fo r g ettin g a c le ar v ie w a he ad a nd fu nd am e nta lly tra ns fo rm in g n ot o nly IT b ut th e b us in es s its elf.

TABLE OFCONTENTSVisualization The Essential Strategy forApplication Consolidation 2Global Sourcing A New Vision 4UPS Bolsters Web App DevelopmentProcess with Simulation Tool 6Vision Validation 8Rational Vision 11Federal IT PrOJect Failures Proposed LegislationAims to Stop the Insanity 13Prototyping Tool Eases Design of iPhone Apps 15

SPONSORED BY

iR 1S e VISUALIZE. INNOVATE. DELIVER!"

COMPETITIVE INSIGHTS FROM COMPUTERWORLD STRATEGIC PARTNER CONTENT


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OVERVIEW

V i s u a l i z a t i o n : T h eE s s e n t i a l S t r a t e g y f o rA p p l i c a t i o n C o n s o l i d a t i o nBY SANDRA GITTLEN

T Y P IC A L P R O C E S S

I'so secret that CIOs todayare under incredible pressureto cut costs. In the previouseconomic downturn, manyCIOs turned to data center consoli-dation and technologies like virtual-ization as their best and fastest wayto trim expenses. For many compa-nies, this strategy has paid off, butthe pressure is on to do more.The major portion of most IT

budgets is dedicated to "keepingthe lights on," or maintaining legacysystems that oftentimes are onlyused by a small number of people.

Most CIOs know that there can betremendous wasted cost and over-lap in functionality across their ap-plication portfolios. Yet in a goodeconomy, it's nearly impossible toget the business to give up certainapplications; it's always a battle withthose few powerful business users.As the economy takes another

downturn, CIOs are once againchanging their thinking. The luxuryof maintaining a large applicationportfolio is a thing of the past. Byeliminating legacy systems, IT lead-ers can save millions of dollars onlicensing and infrastructure costs.The money saved can be given backto the business or reinvested in newrevenue-generating or productiv-ity-enhancing applications that aredirectly aligned with business goals.But how do you get business usersto give up their systems? How canIT leaders get everyone on boardwith a common vision-and getthere quickly?Dr. Richard Frost, global directorof information systems and services

at General Motors, knew he had a

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TECHNOLOGY BRIEFING APPLICATION CONSOLIDATION: THE NUMBER ONE BUSINESS IMPERATIVE 2


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cost-saving opportunity in front ofhim. Byconsolidating the company's22 country-specific portals for deal-ers around the world down to oneportal, he would save money, usefewer human and network resources,and streamline business processes.An earlier attempt at this process

utilized manual requirements gather-ing, resulting in a frustrating designthat forced the company's network of14,000 dealers to revert to their indi-vidual portals. Rather than risking asimilar outcome, the visionary Frostturned to application visualizationto ensure the success of the softwarerationalization project.With application visualization,

companies can quickly simulate theend-state of a proposed referenceapplication early in the process, be-fore any coding happens. Businessusers from around the world can seeand interact with the fully functionalvisualization and quickly get alignedbehind a common vision. This helpscompanies intelligently downsizetheir application portfolio faster andproduces better outcomes for the

business and customersBeing able to create a fully inter-

active, high-definition visualizationof the application to solicit userfeedback before actual coding anddeployment prevents developer andIT cost overruns. For instance, themore accurately a simulation repli-cates the functionality of the finaldesign, the better IT can predict theinfrastructure needed to supportthe application, the fewer changeorders developers will have to en-gage in, and the fewer calls IT willhave to field from frustrated users.In fact, application visualization hasproven to significantly boost useradoption rates and decrease time tomarket, both of which have a directimpact on a company's bottom line."Most executives and IT teams are

actively looking for ways to trim theirIT budgets. Some have gotten direc-tives to cut a certain amount, othersare being proactive. Either way, appli-cation visualization and rationaliza-tion is a solid strategy to find thosesavings," said Dennis Gaughan, a vicepresident at AMR Research.

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Most organizations have alreadyconsolidated their hardware infra-structure and are hoping to do like-wise to their applications portfolioto capitalize on advanced technolo-gies such as virtualization. But first,they have to evaluate their applica-tion inventory and see where thereare redundancies, such as multipleinstances of SAP and Oracle, orhow applications would react out-side of their typical one-applica-tion-to-a-server environment.At GM, Frost and his team part-

nered with global IT consultancyCapgemini to visualize a consoli-dated portal that would take intoaccount the unique sales, serviceand parts application requirementsof dealers in each country. Usingsoftware from iRise, GM was able toidentify in less than six months that94% of dealer business processeswere common across all the portals,meaning application consolidationwould indeed be the big win thatFrost and his team had anticipated.Typically, this kind of require-ments gathering is a laborious tasknecessitating weeks, if not months,of back- and-forth among develop-ers, business analysts and users,ultimately resulting in thousandsof pages of ad hoc documentation."In a traditional development ap-proach, you have these voluminousMS Word documents that everyonehates to put together and very fewpeople read. Also, the translationfrom what users say they need towhat is put in the documentationcreates discontinuities in what iseventually developed. It's a processthat is definitely fraught with peril,"Gaughan said.With application visualiza-



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like GM are able to get a jump-starton user training, which helps speeddeployment and improve adoption.

Me rg er S u cc es sApplication visualization and ra-tionalization is not just for useon internal programs. It can alsobe instrumental in improving thedeployment of consolidated cus-tomer-facing applications.For instance, when SunTrust

Bank acquired National CommerceFinancial (NCF) in 2004 to becomethe seventh largest retail bank in theUnited States, executives worriedthey would experience a drop-off inNCF's one million customers if theydidn't release an online banking ap-plication that was familiar to them.The company used iRise to elicit

requirements from NCF and Sun-Trust customers and simulate anew online application that wouldappeal to both groups. They invitedcustomers to test-drive the applica-tion and offer feedback before theystarted actual development. Thanksto this highly interactive process,they were able to put a new appli-cation into production within fivemonths that required no rework.Executives reported that 95% ofNCF customers signed on with Sun-Trust within the first 30 days."The benefits of compelling

online products and services areimpressive in terms of impact to thebottom line, increased loyalty andcustomer acquisition. With iRisesimulations, we are able to ensurethat we are building the right appli-

cations for our customers the firsttime," said David Nix, vice presi-dent of online banking at SunTrust.For companies to succeed in an

economic downturn, they have todig deeper than mere infrastructureconsolidation to cut costs. Theyneed to turn their attention to ap-plications that help retain custom-ers, streamline business partneroperations, and improve collabora-tion among employees. ''Applicationvisualization and rationalizationprovides the type of value proposi-tion that customers are looking forin [a struggling] economic climate,"said Gaughan. t

Sandra Gittlen is a Massachusetts-based technology writer and formersenior editor at Network World.

II



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CASE STUDY

U P S B o l s t e r s W e b A p pD e v e l o p m e n t P r o c e s sw i t h S i m u l a t i o n T o o lS hip per cuts frictio n b etw een end users and IT bysim ula tin g th e U I b efo re a pp s a re b uilt .

BY HEATHER HAVENsTEIN T his a rtic le o rig in ally a pp ea re d in th e A pril 1 6,2 00 8 e dition o f Compu le rwo r l d .

I'sscenario that has becomeall too familiar in many compa-nies. After months or even yearsofwork, the IT shop proudlypresents a new application that thedesigners and architects believe ex-actly meets the business requirementsprovided them. Then end users tellthem, "This isn't what we asked for."One of the most common causes

of such costly quandaries is a discon-nect in the requirements processwhen user needs are not accuratelyrelayed to the designers and devel-opers. The quest to bridge this gapspawned an entire industry ofven-dors building tools that can better in-terpret requirements and ensure thatthey are infused into various cyclesof the development process.Some companies are opting for

another alternative. For example,United Parcel Service Inc. has over-hauled its process of designinguser interfaces for all new and up-

graded Web applications.As part of the effort, UPS replaced

its Microsoft Visio diagramming toolset with application simulation andauthoring software from iRise Inc.about a year ago and now gets userapproval on new user interfaces veryearly in the requirements-gatheringprocess. That, said Guy Hamblen,project manager in UPS's corporaterepository and architecture businessunit, allows the company's 7,SOO-per-son IT unit to deliver better applica-tions faster.The iRise Studio definition and

authoring tool is designed to createfully interactive replicas ofWeb ap-plication user interfaces that supportuser interaction and feedback beforedevelopment work starts. Othercompanies, including CNA FinancialCorp. and Wachovia Corp., also useiRise technology to simulate user-in-terface designs.Visio, Hamblen noted, did not

simulate how the user would interactwith an application."The biggest challenge that an ap-plication development team has iseliciting the correct requirementsat the beginning of the developmenteffort," he said. "In the traditionalsoftware-development life cycle,oftentimes the user doesn't see thedeveloped effort until the user ac-ceptance test, [which is] late in thedevelopment life cycle and onlymonths away from deployment.Ifthe user says, 'That's not what Iwanted' at that late stage, you lose asignificant amount oftime correct-ing the problem."Bymodeling the user interface in

the requirements phase, the designteam can be sure that it knows exact-ly what the user wants because it has



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used a simulated version, he noted.The simulation can then be an arti-fact for the designers and developers."That ripples throughout the whole

development life cycle," Hamblenadded. "That allowed us to improveour time to market with applica-tion-development releases. That isthe fundamental business driver thatiRise enabled for us."In addition, UPSuses the iRise tool

to support its offshoredevelopmentprojects. It "becomes a very valuableartifactwhere communications barriersare broken down and anoffshore devel-opment team can see exactlywhat it isthey need to deliver,"Hamblen said.For UPS, successfully rolling out

the iRise tool to 160 users in sevenbusiness units was dependent uponthe early senior management sup-port of the technology, Hamblennoted. The company's CIO en-dorsed the initiative and held hisdirect reports accountable for rapidadoption of the tool.In addition, UPS created a "just-in-time" training program to pro-

vide users with hands-on experi-ence immediately after classes sothe lessons would be fresh when

the user community as it was occur-ring," Hamblen said. "That wholeprocess enabled us to deploy theapplication development tool veryrapidly into business units."Hamblen noted that it has beendifficult to come up with hard met-rics to measure the success of thenew tool. In traditional softwaredevelopment, he said, "success isoften noted in how many defectsyou have ... and when you find thosedefects.""By being able to simulate the UI,

we've had many instances wherethe user would say categorically,'That is not what I envisioned whenI gave you my written require-ments," Hamblen said.An experienced iRise user can

make the changes on the fly anddemonstrate the new behavior tothe user during that stakeholdermeeting, which is a significant en-hancement to a traditional develop-ment process," he said. "Obviously,in our old methodology, the userwould not have seen that ambigu-ous requirement until the user ac-ceptance test maybe three or moremonths later." t

" T h e b ig g e s t c h a l le n g et h a t a n a p p l i c a t i o nd e v e lo p m e n t t e a mh a s is e lic it in g t h e c o r -r e c t r e q u ir e m e n ts a tt h e b e g in n in g o f t h ed e v e lo p m e n t e f f o r t , "

G UY HAMBLEN PROJECT MANAG ER , UPS

they tackled the technology. UPSalso kept iRise mentors on sitefollowing the training program towork with the business analystswho develop models, and it cre-ated webcasts to promote the useof technology. Newly formed usergroups associated with each busi-ness unit were created to championuse of the iRise tool and to answerany questions that popped up."We set up a centralized deploy-ment infrastructure to track therapid deployment of applicationsand get immediate feedback from



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REAL WORLD

V i s i o n V a l i d a t i o nS eein g is b eliev in g. V isua liz atio n so ftw a re sa vescom pan ies tim e, m oney an d a w ho le lo t o fu nn e ce ss ary fa ls e s ta rts .

Aa time when IT de-partments have tightbudgets and are pres-sured to do more with

less, companies can't afford to takerisks when it comes to consolida-tion projects, especially when thedevelopment work is outsourced.As IT managers revamp their

strategies to lower costs and developsoftware more quickly, visualizationhas proven to be a successful way toshow business stakeholders what theend-state of a software project willlook like in advance. Visualizationsalso allow users to test-drive theproposed application before develop-ment is under way, enabling them toverify that the right product isbeingbuilt the first time.Eliminating rework and change

orders not only enables a companyto bring a new application to mar-ket more quickly, but it also savesIT departments and business unitsmuch needed time and money thatcould be spent on new revenue-generating projects.The following are just three ex-

amples ofthe hundreds ofcompaniesthat have experienced ongoing successby integrating iRise visualizations intotheir application development process.

O M ' s N e x t S t e p f o rV i s u a l M o d e l i n gResponding to customer demandsefficiently and adapting to changingmarket conditions are challengingfor any IT team, but such chal-lenges are manageable at GeneralMotors, thanks to the introductionof software visual modeling.Known for visual modeling for the

design of vehicles, GM partneredwith iRise and Capgemini to createenterprise-wide visual modelingtechnology that simulates the userexperience of software applicationsbefore their actual use. GM has in-corporated this technology into itsglobal processes to produce simula-tions that ultimately result in moreuser-friendly IT systems."GM is a pioneer in visual model-

ing and has led IT to a tipping pointwhere simulation and user-centereddesign will become the standardfor application development," saidCorey Glickman, global leader ofRapid Design and Visualization atCapgemini. "Implementing systemvisualization across the enterpriseallows GM to bridge the gap be-tween IT, the business and the usersof each software application."Software visual modeling is now

a standard development process atGM, which allows GM to provide"precision IT"-a technology plat-form that brings together multiplecommunities such as GM designers,customer representatives, dealersand customers. This helps GM boostinnovation, cut costs, and speed updelivery time."For a century, GM has success-



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production in just fivemonths withliterally no rework-well ahead oftheoriginalll-month estimate given priorto the introduction of iRise into theprocess. The business owners wereecstatic to find that they exceededtheir retention goals: 95%ofNCF cus-tomers signed up for the new onlinebanking portal in just 30days.

M o r e T i m e f o rS t a f f , P a t i e n t s a tM . D . A n d e r s o nM e d i c a l C e n t e rAt the University of Texas M.D.Anderson Medical Center, everyminute is crucial to finding a curefor cancer and treating patients.The cancer-only care hospital helpssome 70,000 patients each year andhelps develop new weapons againstcancer with its extensive researchand teaching facilities.Time is of the essence for medical

staff at this specialized institution;the more time they can spend tend-ing to patients and not on adminis-trative tasks leads to better care forpatients. Sowhen MDA'sElectronicMedical Records (EMR) departmentwas tasked with developing an on-line solution to automate its patientneeds assessment process, it wasimportant to come up with a systemthat wouldn't consume the medicalstaff in the development stage.Because MDA is a highly special-

ized institution, out-of-the-box EMR

"iRise significantly cuts down thetime needed to elicit requirementsfrom hospital staff and iterateworkflow improvements, allowingdoctors and nurses more time tospend with patients," said O'DellHutchison, business systems analystat M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.During the definition phase, busi-

ness analysts interviewed more than20 staff members for project require-ments. In real time, business analystsplugged the requirements directlyinto an iRise simulation. Stakehold-ers immediately saw the proposedworkflow and recognized areas forimprovement they could not visual-ize when drafting requirements.Feedback solicited in these initial

meetings dramatically reduced theneed for multiple follow-up reviewsessions. With the flow approved,the EMR department enhanced thevisual fidelity of the simulation tolook like a final application. Dur-ing the requirements gatheringcycle, developers were included toensure that the high-fidelity simula-tion looked very similar to the finalproduct. This enabled trainers to de-velop educational materials directlyfrom the simulation and acceleratedadoption as hospital staff membersreceived a familiar application.As a result of simulating the

needs assessment project in iRiseprior to coding, the EMR depart-ment cut the development cycle inhalf and delivered the online appli-cation in five months. The ultimatebeneficiary: patients, who nowreceive the needed attention frommedical staff. t

" iR is e s ig n i f ic a n t lyc u t s d o w n t h e t im en e e d e d to e lic it r e q u i r e -m e n ts f r o m h o s p it a ls ta f f a n d i t e ra te w o r k -f lo w im p ro v e m e n t s ,a llo w in g d o c to rs a n dn u r s e s m o re t im e tos p e n d w i t h p a tie n ts , "

O 'D E L L H U T C H I S O N B U S I N E S S S Y S T E M S A N A L Y S T ,M .D . A N D E R S O N C A N C E R C E N T E R

solutions do not meet its needs. Sothe IT team turned to iRise simula-tion tools, which allow the EMRdepartment to define and develop itsown custom-built applications.M.D. Anderson worked with

iRise to implement the PatientNeeds Assessment module fordocumenting patient vital signsand allergies. Project stakeholdersin these development projects areclinical and research nurses whosolicit and utilize needs assess-ment data. Itwas imperative thatthe EMR department reduce thedevelopment cycle to allow hos-pital staff to spend less time defin-ing and reviewing software andmore time tending to patients.Prior this module, M.D. Andersonimplemented a similar module,which took 10months for finalend-user approval.



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R a t i o n a l V i s i o n

Q : W ha t ro le d oe s g lo ba l s ou rc in g p la yin a ll o f th is ?A : When it comes to strategic develop-ment, it can be difficult to leveragethe benefits ofglobal sourcing. It cantake days or weeks for an offshoreoutsourcer or even an in-house, off-site developer to pore through thepiles ofuser requirements gatheredby a business analyst. And oftentimes,the prototype they create misses themark because they misinterpreted thatdocumentation. This winds up costing

Q: H o w h a ve th e y tr ad it io n ally h a nd le d th e se companies in terms ofdelays in appli-r a ti on a li za ti on a n d d e v e lo p m e n t t as k s? cation rollouts, low user adoption be-A : It's been challenging because us- cause of frustrating design flaws, anders are often on different systems money spent on reworking programs.

Ixecutives who believethey've already hit the bottomof the barrel with cost cuttingwill be happy to know there isstill opportunity for reducing costs.iRise CEO and Co-Founder EmmetB. Keeffe recently spoke with Tech-nology Editor Sandra Gittlen abouthow IT and application develop-ment teams can uncover significantsavings by using application visual-ization and rationalization.

Q: W ha t is th e c urre nt s ta te o f I T b ud ge ts ?A : Whenever there's a recessionbudgets are either flat or reduced by5%to 10%.Over the past few years,companies have handled reductionsthrough hardware consolidation andrationalization. Many CIOs havealready pulled that cost out of theirbusiness. So this time around theyare targeting application develop-ment costs. They are looking at thefact that they probably have mul-tiple human resources, finance, ERPand other systems and they need torationalize them. Also, they are hop-ing to go forward with new revenue-generating application projects buthave to do so at the lowest possibledevelopment cost.

and are attached to those systems. Itcan be incredibly political. There arealso obstacles because the only ap-proach they've known for revampinglegacy applications or deploying newones is lengthy and cumbersome.They have to create use cases andbusiness-process-flow diagrams andother complex documentation byhand. A spec for a large strategic sys-tem could wind up being thousandsof pages long. It's hard to sift throughall that and know whether the pro-posed system will ultimately meettheir needs, and it makes stakehold-ers nervous about the outcome. Inthe end, they find they'd rather stayon multiple systems.

" A p p l ic a t io n v is u a l i z a -t i o n a n d r a t io n a l i z a t io ns p e e d t im e t o m a rk e tb y 3 0 % to 5 0 % , "

E M M E T B . K E E F F E C E O ,iR IS E

TECHNOLOGY BRIEFING APPLICATION CONSOLIDATION: THE NUMBER ONEBUSINESS IMPERATIVE 11


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Q : How do i R is e' s a p p li ca ti on v is ua li za ti ona n d r a ti on a li za t io n t o o ls s o lv e t h es e c ri ti -c a l p r o bl em s ?A : The impact is similar to the effectthat computer-aided design had on theauto manufacturing industry. Ratherthan having to build a prototype of thecar during the development process,

they were able to perfect the designusing simulation software. We'vemade the same thing available for ITand developer teams. Instead of cod-ing the full application up front, ITand developers can create a simulationof the product to gather feedback fromusers. This saves at least 30% on over-

all development costs and increasesuser adoption because the final toolis more in line with user expecta-tions. Most importantly, applicationvisualization and rationalization speedtime to market by 30% to 50%, whichresults in a competitive advantage andultimately more revenue. t

Over the last 15years Emmet B. Keeffe III has applied his philosophy of "the network is the business" to become one of themost well-connected CEOs in the software industry. As CEO and co-founder of iRise, Emmet has leveraged his network toclose over $60 million in investment funding and drives leadership of sales, marketing and business development. Prior toco-founding iRise, his career included sales positions at NetDynamics, Auspex Systems, Diasonics and Minolta. Emmet isalso a member of the Young Presidents' Organization (YPO) and a member of the Board of Trustees at The PartnershipScholars, a foundation focused on improving education for disadvantaged students.



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F e d e r a l I T P r o j e c t F a i l u r e s :P r o p o s e d L e g i s l a t i o n A i m st o S t o p t h e I n s a n i t yBY MERIDITH LEVINSON

"W e 'r e t r y in g to a p p lyb e s t p ra c t ic e s f r o m th ec o m m e r c ia l s id e in toth e f e d e ra l I T s p a c e .. . . W e h a v e h a d r e a ld o c u m e n te d c o m -m e rc ia l s u c c e s s o n th ep r iv a te s id e th a t w e th in kc o u ld b e a p p lie d h e r e ."

M I T C H B I S H O P C M O , iR IS E

T his a rtic le o rig in ally a pp ea re d in th e D ec em b er9 , 2 008 ed itio n o f C I O .

The u.s. Governmenthas a sordid historyof IT project failures.There's the FBI's virtualcase file system, which the agencyscrapped in 2005 after sinking$170million into it; the $8billionsystems modernization the IRSlaunched nearly 10years ago; andthe U.S.Citizenship and Immigra-tion Services' $190million auto-mation effort, to name just a fewstandouts.Naturally, the government's solu-

tion to its IT project managementproblems has been legislation. TheInformation Technology Manage-ment Reform Act of 1996,alsoknown as the Clinger-Cohen Act, re-quires federal agencies to hire stra-tegic CIOs who can implement bestpractices for managing IT from thecorporate world in the public sector.Agency heads are required underSection 11317of Title 40 of the U.S.Code to identify in their IT manage-ment plans any major IT projectthat "has significantly deviated from

the cost, performance or schedulegoals established" for that project.Now there's new legislation mak-

ing its way through Congress aimedat improving the success rates offederal IT projects. If passed, theInformation Technology Invest-ment Oversight Enhancementand Waste Prevention Act of 2008would provide more accountabil-ity for federal IT project failures.In short, it would require agencyheads and their CIOs to report tothe appropriate congressional com-mittee and to the Government Ac-countability Office (GAO) on theiragency's most mission-critical ITprojects that don't meet originalperformance requirements or ex-ceed original cost and schedule es-timates by 20 percent or more.In the event of a cost or schedule

overrun of 40 percent or more, theInformation Technology Invest-ment Oversight Enhancement andWaste Prevention Act specifiesremedial actions agencies need totake to get projects back on track,including identifying three cost-effective alternatives to the ailingproject. The proposed bill wouldalso require the Office of Manage-ment and Budget's e-governmentadministrator to put together aspecial team of certified project andprogram managers from the publicand private sectors to help agenciesavoid cost and schedule overruns.The question is, will this legisla-

tion finally do the trick, or is it justa way for the IT industry to getmore of the government's businessin consulting contracts and soft-ware licenses?CIO.com's Meridith Levinson

spoke to Mitch Bishop, CMO of vi-



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sualization software provider iRise,which is a proponent of the legisla-tion, about the IT Waste PreventionAct and iRise's interest in it. Bishopisn't even convinced the bill, whichhe says is likely to be passed in2009, will be sufficient to preventfederal IT projects from careeningout of control.

Q : Do y o u re a lly t hi nk t his le gi sla ti on ,if p a ss ed , is g oin g t o m a k e a d iff ere nc ein th e s uc ce ss o r fa ilu re o f fe de ra lI T p r oj ec ts ?A : I don't know if it's going to makea difference or not, but what will bedifferent is that projects in distresswill be much more visible. What'sdifferent here is the level of trans-parency. We'll finally be able totrack root causes for these failures.Our point of view is that many proj-ects that are already in distress-much of that failure is tied to badrequirements.

Q : If f ed era l a ge nc ie s a re o n ly re po rt-in g o n p ro je cts o n ce th ey 're in d is tre ss ,w ha t go od d oes th at d o? Isn 't th at to ol it tl e, t o o l at e?A : It remains to be seen whether itwill improve the success rate of theproject. Itwill certainly draw atten-tion to the projects that are success-ful and the projects in distress thatare using public money. Long term,

it will have a net positive effect inpreventing failures because failureswill be more transparent and morepublicly accessible. There are al-ready a lot of projects in distress,but how many of them have weheard about?

Q : D o y o u t hin k th is le gis la tio n w ill re allyh elp ge t a t ro ot ca use s, o r w il l i t ju st c re -a te m o r e g o ve rn m e n t b u re a uc ra c y?A : The reporting may be bureau-cracy, but Norm Brown [executivedirector of the Center for ProgramTransformation, who testified be-fore a senate subcommittee on thedismal state of federal IT projects]is recommending that IT profes-sionals from the private sector help

get these projects back on the railsand get a set of best practices fromthe commercial world to becomestandard for government IT.

Q : H a s iR is e h ad a ny h an d in c ra ft in g th isle gi sla ti on ? Wh a t's iR i se 's i nt er es t i n t heW a st e P re ve nt io n A ct?A : iRise has not had any part incrafting this legislation. It drew ourattention because the problemsthey're describing in this testimonyare exactly the problems we helpsolve. We have a federal sectoroffice now. We see the federal ITbusiness as an opportunity for us,not only to sell our product and getvisualization in use in the federalgovernment but also as a way tohelp improve the efficiency oftax-payer dollars.

Q : B y th ro w in g m o re t ax -p a ye r d o lla rsin to th e p urc ha se o f s of tw a re ?A : Our customers tell us that usingiRise, they're able to get their proj-ects to market twice as fast withabout 30 percent less cost. We'retrying to apply best practices fromthe commercial side into the federalIT space. If we were a startup with-out much success, I could under-stand it remains to be seen, but wehave had real documented commer-cial success on the private side thatwe think could be applied here. t

As the head of overall marketing strategy and execution at iRise for the last five years, Mitch Bishop has built strong ties toCIOs and IT leaders at both large and small companies. With his leadership, iRise has grown its customer base tenfold andbecome the market leader in a new industry category: application visualization. Mitch has many years of marketing andsales experience building successful enterprise software businesses at Scopus, Sybase, Wind River Systems and Ingres. Hehas also held senior engineering positions at Altos Computer Systems, Zilog and Amdahl.



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MOBILE DEMO

P r o t o t y p i n g T o o l E a s e sD e s i g n o f i P h o n e A p p siR ise 's n ew so ftw a re suite a llo w s iP h on e d ev elo persto crea te p ro to typ es th a t lo o k and b eh ave like ana pp lica tio n b ut d on 't h ave th e un derly in g co de.

BY STEPHEN LAWSON T his a rtic le o rig in ally a pp ea re d in th e A p ril 2 9,2 00 8 e ditio n o f I n fo W o r ld .Enterprises that want tocreate applications forApple's iPhone will beable to build and tryoutprototypes using a special pro-gramming template unveiled onTuesday.It's the latest template fromiRise, which has been selling a pro-

totyping platform for other typesof applications for six years. TheEl Segundo, California, companyintroduced it at the Software 2008trade show, being held in conjunc-tion with Interop in Las Vegas.The iPhone is a coveted gadget,

selling 1.7million units in the year'sfirst quarter, with Apple forecasting10million iPhones in the market bythe end of 2008. So far, applicationbuilders who want to reach iPhoneusers have had to get their code torun on the phone's Safari browser,but Apple's recently released SDKlets them write applications to rundirectly on the phone.The iRise software suite is used

to create prototypes that look andbehave like an application but don'thave the underlying code. This letsin-house or outside programmers,and even nonprogrammers, designan application quickly and easilyjust for demonstration. Then deci-sion makers, such as business ex-ecutives, can see how it would workand sign off on the project, accord-ing to Mitch Bishop, chief market-ing officer at iRise. Using a mock-up

T h e [ iR is e J t e m p la t ec a n s im u la te a ll o f t h eP h o n e 's s ta n d a r dm e n u ic o n s a n du s e r a c tio n s , s u c ha s u s in g s l id e r s a n dz o o m in g in a n d o u t o fs c r e e n s b y " p i n c h i n g "a n d " u n p in c h in g , "

M ITCH B ISH OP CMO ,iR IS Eof the user interface tells executivesmore than pages of description, hesaid."Their attitude is, 'I'll know it

when I see it,'" Bishop said. Tra-ditionally, the business side of anenterprise doesn't get to see a newapplication in action until it's large-ly complete. "By then, it's really ex-pensive to make changes," he said.About 180 customers, mostly

Fortune 500 companies, already useiRise for projects, including Web-based applications, portals, andSAP implementations, according to



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Bishop. The company already hasa few customers using the iPhonetemplate, he said."The promise of the iPhone is

that people see it as a vast leapahead in customer experience, andit's a consistent platform," Bishopsaid. By contrast, most mobile-soft-ware platforms vary by both carrierand device.The template can simulate all of

the iPhone's standard menu iconsand user actions, such as usingsliders and zooming in and out ofscreens by "pinching" and "unpinch-ing." Application designers can use itto create custom buttons, manipulatethe menu icons and define the ef-

fects of actions such as double-tap-ping a button, Bishop said.The iPhone simulations will run

on a desktop rather than an actualiPhone, with users interacting withthe virtual phone using a mouse.There is a downloadable tool forusing simulations based on iRise,so companies developing iPhoneapplications will be able to sendsimulations to average consumersand get feedback.OneSpring, a business-analysis

and user-experience design compa-ny in Atlanta, uses the iRise iPhonetemplate in an application simu-lation toolkit it calls the SimDK.OneSpring has helped enterprises

define applications based on someother mobile platforms, said ChuckKonfrst, a senior user experiencearchitect at OneSpring."Most applications, if you de-sign them for mobile devices, are

very text-heavy," Konfrst said. TheiPhone's display capabilities givedesigners more freedom and a wholenew set of choices, he said. One-Spring offers a video to demonstrate.The iRise template for the

iPhone is free to users of iRise,which costs about $5,000 per seat,according to Bishop. The One-Spring iPhone SimDK for iRise willbe available from OneSpring start-ing May 1for $495. t

Documents

AST-0026309 Computer World - Application Rationalization - March 2009