DETROIT, March 31, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Compuware Corporation (Nasdaq:CPWR) today announced that it is jump-starting Application Portfolio Management (APM) initiatives by offering a pre-configured version of its market-leading IT portfolio management solution, Changepoint.
IT organizations recognize that APM holds great promise for reducing the costs and improving the margins of application portfolios. However, challenges in identifying inventory, collecting the right metrics and applying the resulting analysis toward decision making can make starting an APM initiative difficult. Changepoint and the APM Accelerator, key components of Compuware's Business Service Delivery approach, enable IT to get started quickly, using pre-defined metrics and industry best-practices to understand inventory, collect accurate data and assess portfolio roadmap.
"APM processes fill gaps in a company's knowledge about the costs, risks and business value of deployed applications," wrote Jim Duggan, Research Vice President at Gartner, Inc., in the research report titled: Planning for IT Modernization: Start From the Top With APM.(i) "Filling those gaps improves consistency of IT modernization analysis and flags opportunities to reduce total cost and risk. Without disciplined APM processes, enterprises will be dependent on poorly documented guesswork, and often will be unable to overcome institutional inertia."
Compuware's Business Service Delivery (BSD) approach ensures that applications work well and deliver value by providing visibility into the cost, value and risks of the application portfolio. Changepoint's APM Accelerator achieves these goals by speeding APM adoption through:
* Metrics focused on strategic alignment, technology compliance, the financial perspective and the vendor perspective to assess application health. Metrics can be user entered, calculated, populated by Changepoint or external systems, or driven by Changepoint's integrated survey engine. * Application scorecards to drive high-level visibility, with the opportunity to drill through to low-level detail for each application. * TIME views to drive assessment and roadmap building (based on Gartner's TIME triage framework - Tolerate, Invest, Migrate and Eliminate).(ii) * Visibility into the application portfolios at an executive level from a client, financial, resource, life cycle and technical perspective.
"Ultimately, IT must deliver business value and drive competitive differentiation for the business. However, the costs of 'keeping the lights on' are increasing at the expense of investment in strategic technology initiatives," said Lori Ellsworth, Vice President of Changepoint Solutions. "Changepoint's Application Portfolio Management capabilities and Accelerator give IT a sustainable view into application portfolio health, enabling informed decisions that reduce the number of applications, drive costs down and better align resource investment and better serve the business."
For more on Application Portfolio Management, listen to an on-demand Compuware webcast featuring Gartner Vice President of Research, Jim Duggan who will discuss scenarios of how IT executives are extending their PPM strategies to include application portfolio management for greater insight into IT operations and higher returns for business. Register for this free on-demand webcast at: http://www.gantthead.com/survey/survey.cfm?ID=204&refID=0310.
Compuware Changepoint is a business-centric IT management solution that enables IT executives to take a comprehensive approach to managing supply and demand--unlocking the potential of an IT organization to effectively meet the needs of the business. Using Changepoint, CIOs can deliver maximum business value through enhanced IT performance, improved collaboration between IT and business leadership, closer alignment of resources and activities with the business strategy, increased responsiveness to changing business needs and more effective life cycle management of the entire IT portfolio. http://www.compuware.com/solutions/it-portfolio-management.htm
Compuware Corporation
Compuware Corporation makes IT rock around the world, helping CIOs optimize IT performance to achieve business goals. Compuware solutions accelerate the development, improve the quality and enhance the performance of critical business systems while enabling CIOs to align and govern the entire IT portfolio, increasing efficiency, cost control and employee productivity throughout the IT organization. Founded in 1973, Compuware serves the world's leading IT organizations, including more than 92 percent of the Fortune 50 companies. Learn more about Compuware at http://www.compuware.com.
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(i) Gartner: "Planning for IT Modernization: Start From the Top With APM" May 20, 2008; by Jim, Duggan
(ii) Gartner: "Application Portfolio Triage: TIME for APM" July 19, 2007; by Jim, Duggan