In our third article on recent updates on the requirements management (RM) tool market, we will take a look on IBM Rational. As one of the major players and with the past Rational and Telelogic acquisitions, IBM has had a diverse portfolio of requirements-related products. In past editions of our RM tools list, we used to include IBM Rational RequisitePro (not marketed any more), IBM Rational DOORS, IBM Rational Requirements Composer, IBM Notes (not a specialized RM tool, but traditionally a basis of quite many customized in-house RM solutions), IBM Focal Point (for RM-related product management and portfolio management), and IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation.
In June this year (2014), IBM Rational performed another move to consolidate its RM tools portfolio: IBM Rational Requirements Composer has been merged with IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation and will be discontinued some time in the future once the support period will be over. You might want to read IBM Rational’s blog post for details and background information.
Now it is clear that IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation will be the key requirements solution on the Jazz platform. One can also expect that DOORS Next Generation (consider its name …) will at one day become the successor of IBM Rational DOORS. However, we are not aware of any official statement from IBM Rational that this will happen, not to speak of when this will happen. As of now, with DOORS’s huge installed base and the many customizations used in the field, quite some time might pass until IBM Rational publicly touches the phase-out of DOORS. This is even more plausible when taking into account that DOORS Next Generation is being build on an entirely new technological basis, and that its name is the main element it has in common with the traditional DOORS product. So considerable efforts and time might still be required until a smooth transition path to the “next generation” will be created.