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Sunday 27 March 2011

The Business Case for Perforce SCM

Software Confi guration Management Delivers A Competitive Advantage

What Is SCM?

Today’s complex application development environments demand SCM to track and manage the development process. SCM provides a central repository where all software artifacts such as source code, documentation, and digital assets are stored to maintain and reproduce each iteration accurately.Although the software industry has been using SCM for many years, other industries are fi nally recognizing its importance. From chip design to game development, and web design to fi lmmaking,any company that has digital content can track its evolution with SCM.


How SCM Reduces Cost and Manages Risk

Gartner, Forrester Research, and IDC—the major research fi rms that monitor the SCM market—all agree on the business demands fueling the need for improved change management.“With the dot-com collapse, IT lost its magical aura,” says Jim Duggan, an analyst at Gartner.
“Management is now interested in getting better at change control and governance.
According to META Group, key business benefi ts of SCM are better quality, faster delivery, and easier modifi cation of enterprise systems, as well as more fl exible management, and support of mixed on/offshore development teams. META Group’s report states, “The complexity of service-oriented,highly distributed systems, combined with the need for greater project control to support regulatory compliance, demand the consistency of enterprise SCM systems to reduce costs and manage risks.” Supporting geographically dispersed project teams of both internal and external developers is also an important factor, according to META. “This will become more essential as organizations continue to supplement external staff with offshore and other outsourced programming staff.”  IDC agrees that the demand for SCM tools will remain strong as organizations seek to improve their software development processes to meet business demands for higher productivity and improved time to market, in the face of ongoing IT budget constraints.

SCM Aids Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance

The benefi ts of using an SCM system become particularly apparent in light of Sarbanes- Oxley requirements, because having the ability to answer whodunit-type questions applies not just to source code.The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 promotes new standards for the fi nancial reporting of public companies, and sets up a policing mechanism to ensure those standards are adhered to. Auditors who measure a company’s effectiveness in meeting these standards have become more sophisticated in their understanding of the necessary controls IT departments need for compliance. Auditors need to know “Who changed what?”, “When did they do it?”, “Who approved the change?”, and “Why?”


Customers Discuss the Business Benefi ts of Using Perforce

More than 230,000 developers at 4,200 organizations worldwide use the Perforce SCM System to manage their digital assets. Notable U.S. customers include AMD, Electronic Arts, National Instruments, QUALCOMM, NVIDIA, Symantec, and Washington Mutual. International customers include BBC News Online, Deutsche Bank, and Symbian.The business benefi ts of Perforce can best be illustrated by the success stories we’ve heard from our customers. We next showcase two case studies to illustrate the value of Perforce to our customers.

The Perforce Approach to Business

Perforce Software was founded in 1995. Now, as then, their commitment to speed still drives the company in the development of its reliable Fast SCM System. The Perforce SCM System features comprehensive SCM capabilities built around a scalable client/server architecture. Perforce can be deployed quickly and easily, and requires minimal administration even for large or distributed sites. Perforce promises honest, straightforward dealing, and a product that meets both the technical needs of your staff and the business needs of your organization.
Ultimately, your team needs to evaluate our product. Perforce offers a free, fully functional version directly from our website. We encourage prospective customers to take advantage of our expert technical support.



Perforce SCM: Low Cost of Ownership

One of the barriers to adopting a new SCM system is the high cost of most systems, both in terms of the up-front purchase price as well as the ongoing maintenance and administration. Perforce is unique in that it combines an affordable up-front purchase price with low administrative and support costs.

All-Inclusive Purchase Price

 
Perforce is $800 per user for the complete solution, which includes its distributed development technology. Pricing is all-inclusive; there are no add-on components that require licensing. The purchase price covers support and software upgrades for the fi rst year. Perforce offers cumulative pricing tiers. The per-user price is based on the cumulative number of users purchased by an organization, not just the number in any one order.


Minimal Administration



The Perforce Server is easy to install and administer. No third-party databases or application servers are required. User authentication is supported for external data sources such as LDAP and Active Directory. One part-time administrator can typically manage a Perforce installation of hundreds of users.


Expert Technical Support


Expert and responsive technical support is a hallmark of Perforce and a key component of the
Perforce proposition. The support staff are highly knowledgeable—no outsourcing, no scripted
responses—and take great pride in rapid response times. As a result, Perforce technical support receives enthusiastic praise from customers every day.

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