Compuware bought Changepoint in April 2004 for $100m in cash. Changepoint started life in the professional services automation (PSA) market, and competes with other PSA companies such as Niku, Primavera, PlanView and Pacific Edge. Like them, Changepoint added performance management, financial management, opportunity management, and project management to its PSA software to turn itself into an IT governance company.
Compuware said CARS 5.0 introduces what it calls Quality Governance, said to optimize a quality assurance organization’s ability to deliver reliable business applications that provide maximum business value. It does this through the implementation of effective governance models and the integration with its Changepoint software, according to the company.
By integrating with the Changepoint tools, project portfolios that contain development projects can now benefit from new metrics that communicate a software quality index. This integration increases the accuracy of tracking and evaluating a project’s health and risk, and reduces the administrative burden of collecting and entering data into multiple systems for reporting, Compuware said.
As well as former PSA companies such as Niku, Compuware competes in the IT governance market with the likes of Mercury Interactive, which bought into the space by acquiring Kintana in June 2003 for around $225m. For IT governance best practices advice, end users can also turn to the IT Governance Institute (ITGI), which conducts original research into IT governance, and publishes the Control Objectives for Information and related Technology (COBIT).
