Platinum Technology Inc is offering what it claims is the first integrated process and project management tool in the shape of Process Continuum 4.0 for software development lifecycle management. The suite comes from the Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois company’s December 1995 acquisition of Protellicess Software Inc, itself the result of a merger between Structured Solutions Inc and Poc-It Management Services Inc. Protellicess had a product framework called Enterprise Process Continuum, which makes up the majority of the integrated Process Continuum. In fact, all the tools came from Protellicess, and what are new are some added methodologies and a new common repository, as well as the ability to launch Paradigm Plus, its object-oriented design and analysis tool from Process Continuum. It comprises five tools in all. Map is a tool for authoring, customizing and maintaining routes, which are methodologies for implementing software applications on mainframes and client-server systems. It is an automated and graphical version of software design methodologies. Platinum says Process Continuum has 15 mainframe routes and five client-server ones, as well as other design methods and user-customized routes. Estimator, as the name suggests, works out the resources required to implement any given application. The Project Manager integrates with Estimator for staff management, scheduling and project reporting. The Status & Time Reporting tool does time management, task assignment, tracks progress and records changes. The metrics generated are stored in a repository to develop so-called best practices. And the Workflow tool does what any workflow tool does: generates time-tables, to-do lists and the like. It is called version 4.0 be cause the Protellicess EPC product and the old Structured Solutions workflow products were at the 3.X stag-es of their lives. It is available now for Windows95, Windows NT and OS/2. Along with everything else at Platinum, Process Continuum will eventually be integrated with its POEMS Platinum Open Enterprise Management Solutions program, and the single repository used by the two products that made up Protellicess is the first step towards that integration, says Linda Fritzsche, Platinum’s application lifecycle business unit marketing manager.
