Merant today introduced Merant Professional 8. Already one of the most widely adopted solutions in the software configuration management (SCM) industry, Merant Professional (formerly known as PVCS Professional) now includes significant improvements in security, performance, scalability, and support for distributed development, as well as fully integrated, next-generation build management.
A comprehensive, integrated SCM suite that delivers version, defect, build and issue management, Merant Professional helps customers reduce development errors, establish repeatable builds and predictable development schedules, and deliver solutions to market faster. Merant Professional is ideal for dynamic, fast-paced development projects and distributed project teams.
"Since implementing Merant Professional, we've already seen a solid return on investment, both in terms of time savings and the integrity of our code. Software builds that used to take four or five hours are now finished in only 30 minutes," said Mitch Gottlieb, build manager at 360Commerce, a provider of cross-channel store and enterprise solutions for retailers. "More importantly, customer satisfaction with our recent software releases has been outstanding. With Professional, we can consistently provide our high-quality applications in the timeframe our customers need them."
"This new and improved Professional 8 delivers what our customers want: the ability to lock down and secure assets, to manage development across different geographies and to continue to use the same tools as their project team grows," said Stephen King, senior vice president and general manager at Merant. "Our commitment to our customers' satisfaction is further reflected in our decision to add this and other exciting new functionality with no increase in our pricing."
Merant Professional includes Merant Tracker, which delivers automated tracking of bug reports, defects and other project issues and changes, as well as Merant Version Manager, which enables simplified and error-free parallel development. And now, with Merant Professional 8, customers have a choice of using Merant Configuration Builder or Merant Build, Merant's new, next-generation solution for build management.
Merant Build is fully integrated with Merant Version Manager, allowing customers to automate and synchronize the entire build management process. Merant Build offers multi-platform and multi-language support, and integrates with all leading integrated development environments (IDEs) including Ant, Microsoft Visual Studio .NET, WebSphere Studio Application Developer and Borland JBuilder. It can also be used for cross-platform and remote builds.
In addition to enhancements such as advanced filtering, single-click column sorting, and label and version browsing, Merant Professional 8 includes a number of new features that make it even more appealing to development teams working in disparate locations. The web client has been dramatically improved, and now offers differencing and merging capabilities, customizable web reporting and printing, double-click editing, manual notification and file attachment. Moreover, with the new Version Manager file server, users can remotely access software assets using either the web client or the distributed client.
"The ability to deliver solutions that support the unique needs of distributed development teams is a driving factor in today's software configuration management space," said Dick Heiman, research director at IDC. "Products that offer solid security, performance and workflow are required to improve the quality, productivity and predictability of distributed development projects."
Additional enhancements in Merant Tracker 8 support multiple issue types within a single project, allowing teams to track defects, enhancements, requirements, tasks and project issues all within a central project repository. And, relationships between these issue types, including duplicate and information relationships, can be created and managed within and across projects.
These new capabilities can be leveraged by any team within a business -- not just software developers. In fact, teams that need to manage any issues or project dependencies in real-time, and require interfaces for non-development personas, can use Merant Tracker to create new project efficiencies and boost productivity.
Merant Professional 8 also supports single sign-on, as well as Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), providing an industry standard method of managing user authentication and user administration.
The new Version Manager File Server enables a true client/server architecture, providing secure repository access for all Version Manager clients, and significantly improving performance and scalability. The file server stores and enforces permissions, and no longer requires read/write access to archives, eliminating accidental deletion of archives. It also supports heterogeneous environments and can be easily configured to work with an organization's existing firewalls.
Merant Professional 8 also delivers a significant increase in performance, with up to a 300 percent improvement in areas such as write operations. Moreover, the new Merant Tracker multi-threaded web server substantially boosts performance and supports a much larger number of concurrent users.
Merant (acquired by Serena, now part of Micro Focus) delivers the industry's most flexible and comprehensive enterprise change management solutions. Thousands of organizations across the globe rely on Merant's software and services to dramatically enhance the productivity, quality and ROI of their technology initiatives by allowing them to easily track, manage and control modifications in business-critical information assets.