Leading Industry Analyst Firm Assesses the ALM Market Offerings and Their Providers

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In keeping you informed of third-party evaluations of our products and technologies, I wanted to draw your attention to recent research from Gartner, Inc.. The report – released December 17, 2008 under the title “MarketScope for Application Life Cycle Management” by analysts Jim Duggan, Matt Light  and Thomas E. Murphy – delivers valuable information about the Application Life Cycle Management (ALM) market segment. 

In this ALM MarketScope, Gartner rates Microsoft as Positive. According to Gartner, “ALM is the practices, processes and tools that aid in the management of the application life cycle, specifically the workflow of producing or maintaining an application. Key capabilities include change management, workflow and work item management, and an integration backplane that allows an organization to establish traceability and accountability across multiple processes, multiple locations, multiple tool types, and multiple tools of each type across the stages of development and delivery.”

Gartner estimates “that sales of ALM tools totaled $1.26 billion for calendar year 2007, with a growth rate of 11.2%. Although current economic conditions will suppress many projects, we believe that the ALM market will stay relatively strong because of the value that ALM returns to a company in productivity, predictability, automation and governance.”

About Microsoft Visual Studio Team System:

Microsoft® Visual Studio® Team System 2008 provides multi-disciplined team members with an integrated set of tools for architecture, design, development, database development and testing of applications. Team members can continuously collaborate and utilize a complete set of tools and guidance at every step of the application life cycle.

I hope you find this information helpful. Please let me know if you have any questions. You can find the full independent report on Microsoft PressPass, “MarketScope for Application Life Cycle Management” at: https://mediaproducts.gartner.com/reprints/microsoft/vol4/article7/article7.html