The Microsoft Application Development Radars (Vendor Focus)

Introduction

This brief analyses the strengths and weaknesses of Microsoft's Application Lifecycle Management offering. Microsoft is rated according to its market impact, user sentiment and technology strength.

Scope

• Technology: an assessment of Microsoft's technology based on specific attributes and the availability of certain features.
• User sentiment: tracks end-users' impression of Microsoft's products and services based on a survey of over 210 ALM IT managers.
• Market impact: measures Microsoft's market impact based on its revenues, installed base, geographic presence, growth, and R&D investments.

Highlights

Enterprise users are progressively moving away from point solutions in the application development space towards well integrated Application Lifecycle Management solutions that help them manage the entire lifecycle of application development, deployment, and ongoing management and monitoring.

The ALM market is in the midst of transformation, with new players entering the market and established ones growing through acquisition. With technology equivalence an expected feature of this market in the medium term, vendors not only need to offer strong technology solutions but also differentiate on a variety of strategies and business models.

Reasons to Purchase

• Gain detailed knowledge of Microsoft's strengths with regards to technology, user sentiment and market impact.
• Enterprise IT managers will gain valuable insights that help inform and improve their ALM purchasing decisions.
• ALM vendors can benchmark their own performance against Microsoft across various evaluation criteria.