Compuware UK and Ireland >> The Leader in IT Value

	April 07

NEWS AND VIEWS FOR COMPUWARE CUSTOMERS

Welcome from Pete Summers

Welcome to the April 2007 issue of Compuware Insight, the monthly newsletter for Compuware customers.

In our News section, we focus on emerging practices in IT Portfolio Management, with a particular focus on the art of managing, evaluating and shaping demands from the business. Download articles and best practice White Papers that will help your organisation take a more strategic approach to IT governance.

In the Development section, you can read how one US insurance organisation has saved money and time by rewriting its legacy applications for a Web environment with Uniface and hosting them on a software-as-a-service model. Find out too how LogicaCMG in the Netherlands is capturing clients’ development requirements more accurately with Compuware Optimal Trace. OptimalJ users, meanwhile, can learn how they can transition to a Software Factory model using OptimalJ Architecture Edition – and see how one UK customer has already benefited from this approach.

In the Quality section, we reveal how IT services company Atos Origin is standardising quality management processes across all of its in-country and offshore testing and QA teams worldwide. We’re also proud to bring you Bloor Research’s very positive evaluation of our new Quality Management solution. Finally, there is news of an updated, enhanced version of QACenter Performance Edition.

In this month’s Performance section, we take a look at how law firms can benefit from implementing end-to-end user monitoring for applications and data, and reveal the surprising results of our survey into enterprise network readiness for VoIP.

Finally, in the Enterprise section, we look at how one German customer, Sparkassen Informatik, has saved more than 6,000 computing days in two years with Compuware’s MIPS management solution. We also focus on agile development for the enterprise and debunk some of the myths around this very productive, but often misunderstood, approach.

As always, I hope that you enjoy this issue of Insight and find it useful. We would love to receive your feedback, comments and questions, so please don’t hesitate to email us here.

Best wishes

Pete Summers, EMEA Marketing Director

The new era of IT management

With the heady days of the dotcom boom well behind us, IT departments must now be ready to justify every investment they make. There is a new art to understanding which IT investment requests will truly benefit the business, and to dedicating the right amount of time, money and – crucially – people to each one. Our featured article this month looks at the way IT management is changing in an era of close scrutiny, greater alignment with the business and stricter compliance.

Read the full article ‘Making the Best IT Investment Decisions for the Business’

Better demand management leads to better IT governance…

Today’s CIOs are drowning in countless requests for new IT projects. Without sophisticated practices for evaluating and managing the demands it receives from the business, there is a big risk that IT will end up simply capitulating to the requesters that shout the loudest. And with only limited budgets and human resources at their disposal, CIOs must find ways to understand better where money and resource can most effectively be deployed. A new White Paper from Valuedance explains the practice of demand management, and how it can help belaboured CIOs to manage and evaluate demands from the business and align them with corporate goals and available budget and resource to deliver the IT projects that will make a real difference to the business.

Download the White Paper ‘Maturing Your Demand Management Practices’

…but CIOs must learn to shape demand, not just respond to it

CIOs have an even more strategic role to play in the modern enterprise than simply evaluating demands and allocating resources appropriately. This month’s featured ‘Best Practices’ White Paper from analyst firm Forrester Research looks at how CIOs and IT departments can proactively shape demand from the business. In addition to managing demand, it shows how IT can use strategies like effective communications and pricing to focus the business on what it really needs to achieve with IT in order to meet corporate objectives.

Download the White Paper ‘How IT Must Shape and Manage Demand’