StarBase Corp claims the StarTeam Pro 3.0 team software development environment it will begin selling next month puts it streets ahead of other vendors selling group-oriented development products because it puts an integrated set of software lifecycle tools together in one product. The likes of Rational-Pure Atria, Segue Software, MKS and Continuus Software offer point products but none offers a full range of collaborative development services, StarBase says. The Irvine, California company boasts that StarTeam encompasses requirements, analysis, design, coding, testing, change requirement, version control, tasks, processes, change management and test suites, all linked through a common repository. In future it looks likely that users will also be able to utilize the Microsoft Repository as the underlying logic store if required. Because it can be used over the internet and intranets and configured with a browser front-end, StarBase likes to think of the product as suitable for virtual teams that might be comprised of technical writers, programmers and test engineers, project managers and quality assurance staff, plus customer support departments and customers themselves. It says the technology is suited for small development teams or the largest software engineering groups, though StarTeam Pro 3.0 is geared as an out-of-the-box product for departmental development. StarTeam Pro 3.0 can work in conjunction with any ODBC database as well as using native SQL Server and Oracle connections. StarBase claims StarTeam is the only team development product which is currently integrated with Symantec Corp’s Visual Cafe Java developer tools – Intersolv had said back in March that PVCS would be integrated with Cafe but the functionality was never delivered. It comes with ActiveX and JavaBean interfaces for integration with other tools and applications. The command line is written in Microsoft J++ and StarBase says it’s now validating StarTeam for use with all Java command line written in Microsoft’s Java++ and is validating it for use with various Java developer implementations. Support for all-Java clients is coming. Visual Basic Applications is bundled. Although StarTeam could legitimately be used wherever there is a shared, collaborative development process – its engineers hail from groupware pioneer Ashton-Tate which was consumed by Lotus Development Corp – StarBase is focusing its efforts on the lucrative collaborative programming environment. StarBase says it won’t develop additional tools where other already exist, planning for example to bundle third party test tools with StarTeam. Its software can be tailored to look like MS Office or an existing corporate interface.
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StarBase claims the companies OEMing or bundling StarTeam’s version control module – Oracle, Symantec, Visix, Aonix, Allaire, SoftQuad and SuperCede – have already shipped one million copies of the program between them. The module, Versions 2.0, interoperates with Intersolv Inc PVCS and Microsoft Corp Visual SourceSafe 5.0, enabling developers to utilize documents stored in those formats with StarTeam. With $12m venture funding in place the five-year old consulting concern turned developer (CI No 3,085), says it may raise a further $3m to $5m and expects to record sales of $2m in its first full year of selling StarTeam to the end of March 1998. Next year it predicts it will do at least $12m in product sales, not counting the OEM and bundling arrangements it already has. It claims StarBase is going to feature prominently in troubled Segue Software Inc’s future product line. It’s got a StarTeam Enterprise 3.0 product in the pipeline for the second quarter plus StarTeam 2000 geared for Y2K work. StarTeam 3.0 Pro includes Version Control, Visual CM, defect management and threaded conversations and costs from $500. An Enterprise version, which is programmable and also includes task management, costs $800. The StarTeam Server is $1,300 on Windows NT – a Unix version is being readied.
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