It's all very well IBM Rational banging on with statements like "software runs the world, better software equals better business, software in concert," but until this ethos is reflected in the tools that they sell you in order to produce "better software", I won't be able take them seriously.

E.g. Rational Robot, Test Manager and Requisite Pro all appear to be apps cobbled together for NT3.5 that have been incrementally patched to maintain compatibility. Barely.

Certainly, the challenges faced in the day-to-day use of such tools is not offset by their supposed benefits. I really wonder what weight they think their Rational Unified Process pulls when they haven't appeared to have implemented it internally.

I've make my complaints, and their response was to challenge me to "find an alternative that does what our tool does." I have - it's called a brain, and I was just fine relying on my own one before being dragged into their techno-religious dogma.

Save your money.

Indepth article from author that is a veteran of the IBM conference circuit.

The trouble with large companies is they often are not quick enough to respond to the needs of there client base, often issuing software updates for the sake of there balance sheets

cheer George

I have used IBM software many times in the past and I think that the old phrase "No one ever got fired for buying IBM" should read "Fire any one for buying IBM."

Eclipse is an ok but for developing thick clients the deployment mechanism is impossible. ClearCase is dreadful - I have never come across a more stupid way of source control. A massively over engineered solution that 99% of organisations do not need.

The IBM way is to reinvent the wheel. An IBM wheel is flat as so it can not roll away - great apart from the fact that it is useless as wheel.

.....and no I'm not an M$ zealot or an open source geek before I get accused of that !!

Let me first start by pointing out that I believe that IBM is taking with Jazz an interesting approach to improve collaboration between the members of a development team. Its OSGI based Elipse IDE extensions will definately help in an intuitive way to interact and share information between them

I regret though that the mechanism used for creating this level of interoperability is again propriatary in nature and using an SOA architecture based on the Java VM instead of the web and web services. When taking a closer look at the ALF project (eclipse.org/ALF), it is exactly those propriatary interoperabilities that customers are struggling with and try to avoid.

Also not every interoperability requirement within the application lifcycle has to go via the IDE. Interaction workflows can and will exist as secundary actions as a result of an IDE interaction.

Unless IBM is affraid of opening up to a true open application lifecycle framework, where it becomes easier to replace one solution with an alternative, I am convinced that opening up Jazz to interact within the ALF framework will provide a more flexible and richer experience for the Jazz user.