Innovative knowledge-centric ALM concept produces only winner in project management category

Beijing; lafayette, Calif. January 22, 2007The China Software Industry Association has awarded TechExcel DevSuite its highest honor in the Chinese software industry, the “Gold Software Award”. Vying for the honor with 40 other software vendors in the “project management” category, finalists and winners were selected based on industry expert surveys, utility, innovation and value. DevSuite was the stand-out winner in this hotly-contested category.

TechExcel’s DevSuite is used by leading companies for the development of commercial software in the retail market including interactive game developers and financial services. Current customers of TechExcel use DevSuite to enable a central core team to design software and outsourced or distributed teams to implement the design.

TechExcel, Inc. is the leading provider of knowledge-centric Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) and Service and Support software solutions. As current trends indicate, software is increasingly being designed by a central team and then implemented by an outsourced or distributed team. TechExcel DevSuite is built with the best-practice that knowledge – from design documents, to customer requests, detailed functional and behavior maps, and any other information needed to support a feature – is central to any software development initiative. By eliminating these silos that exist between different teams and in different locales, DevSuite helps enterprises dramatically transform development processes, increasing both the efficiency and overall quality of end products. This strategy enables teams communicate better and reduce their cycle times, allowing the right products for the right markets to be developed in the shortest possible time. The company’s software is used by a large number of Fortune 2000 companies.

TechExcel DevSuite assures that all knowledge, from feature requests to design diagrams to resource planning, can be shared across the various phases of the development lifecycle. Products in the suite include:

KnowledgeWise

Allows companies to easily manage all ideas, feature requests, enhancement suggestions, and other content as informal and well-organized knowledge, originating from any source, including customers, via the KnowledgeWise Portal.

DevPlan

Manages the transformation of concepts into formal strategic plans. Boasting an array of innovative features, DevPlan offers an intuitive planning hierarchy to formalize scope and optimize resource usage, team-based planning and calendaring capabilities. These features enable complete control over all product development projects from design planning to implementation and enables increased team efficiency and collaboration.

DevTrack

Building on the strategic vision, deliverables and milestones of DevPlan, DevTrack manages the implementation process. DevTrack powerfully, yet flexibly coordinates workflow, notification, escalation, routing, version control, activity tracking, QA testing, multi-release management and much more. For example, once an area of development is ready for implementation, DevTrack ensures that teams execute their tasks within the context of DevPlan’s project breakdown structure. Designs and specifications are easily viewable by the DevTrack user so that no work is performed without an approved concept driving it; managers can also quickly identify areas that require design and schedule brainstorming sessions, or presentations of completed designs, in order to refine their vision.

DevTest

DevTest helps QA teams manage every aspect of their testing process, from team management to test planning and analysis. Teams can create and manage release and test cycles, plan and assign tasks, execute test coverage, and submit product defects, all in a single application. The product manages functional regression testing, performance testing, and usability testing; what’s more, each test case template is linked to a specific DevPlan feature so the test case owner has direct visibility to all feature-related knowledge.

In cooperation with the China Center for Information Industry Development, the China Software Industry Association conducts yearly surveys through various public channels. After polling industry experts and other pundits, more than 40 software products were chosen for the award categorized by focus area. DevSuite’s “Knowledge-centric” concept received the expert’s highest recognition. Developers can download fully-functional evaluation software here.