DETROIT—Compuware Corp. affirmed its commitment to Microsoft Corp.s Windows and the .Net platform by announcing plans Thursday to increase support for the Microsoft Visual Studio suite of development tools.
At the companys OJ.X developer conference here, Bob Barker, vice president of strategic planning for technology, said Compuware will continue to deliver products that support the Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio Team System development experience.
In addition, Compuware will provide expertise and best practices on top of its products aimed at helping IT organizations develop, test, manage and govern applications for the Windows platform.
Compuware is a founding board member of the Microsoft VSIP (Visual Studio Industry Partner) Program and will be a gold sponsor of the Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 launch tour, which kicks off on Nov. 7 in San Francisco.
Rick LaPlante, general manager of Visual Studio 2005 Team System at Microsoft, said Compuware will be participating in demonstrations at the launch event.
At the event, the company will demonstrate an upcoming release of Compuware TestPartner with functional and regression testing capabilities integrated into Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System, Compuware officials said.
This integration enables developers and testers to work collaboratively to resolve software defects early in the software life cycle, the company said.
Meanwhile, Compuware plans to deliver a new version of Compuware DevPartner Studio that will integrate with Visual Studio 2005. DevPartner Studio 8.0 will offer enhanced support for Web services, a new Performance Expert feature and error simulation capabilities, the company said.
Additionally, Compuware will introduce a new release of its DevPartner Fault Simulator that will integrate with DevPartner Studio, giving developers the ability to gather code coverage data for error handlers exercised with fault simulation.
Then, early in 2006, Compuware plans to release the next version of its security analysis tool, DevPartner SecurityChecker, with support for Visual Studio 2005, the company said.
“Were focused on innovation through agility,” said Mike Burba, director of Compuware Application Development Solutions. “That means agile applications, agile development, agile testing and agile tools.”
Burba said Compuware is supporting an agile development approach, including iterative development and testing to bring the user in early and often to check on the progress developers make to the applications under development.
“Compuware is an important and valuable member of the Visual Studio Industry Partner (VSIP) program and has a rich heritage with enterprise applications,” Microsofts LaPlante said in a statement. “We are very happy to see Compuwares substantial and continued investment in .Net technologies and its focus on application life cycle innovation and agility.”
Meanwhile, in addition to expanding its support for the Microsoft environment, Compuware also extended its support for the Java development space by announcing its membership as a Strategic Developer and board member of the Eclipse Foundation. Eclipse is an open-source application development environment that is quickly becoming a standard for Java developers.