News

Blueprint's Requirements App Hits U.S. Market

• By Kurt Mackie
• May 29, 2007

The company's original name, Sofea, was based on the name of a Russian scientist who modeled complex control systems for the Russian military, later working for Sun Microsystems, according to David Nyland, president and CEO of Blueprint Systems. The company has been incubating and deploying its product with banks in Canada. Now its requirements definition solution is ready to go to market, Nyland explained.

The company selected the Blueprint name to emulate engineering firms, taking a different approach from the way software has been traditionally designed, he said.

For instance, Nyland said that about 50 percent of software project teams are located offshore. People aren't building end-to-end applications as much. Moreover, about 60 percent of projects fail to meet business needs. About half of a software project's time is typically spent redoing an implementation, he added.

Consequently, the company introduced its new product, called Blueprint Requirements 2007, to take a new approach to software projects. The product is a requirements definition reference platform that can define applications, simulate them and validate the requirements. The Blueprint Requirements 2007 platform consists of three suites, designed for analysts, developers and testers, respectively:

• Blueprint Requirements Center Analyst allows business analysts to define application functionality and simulate processes.
• Blueprint Requirements Center Developer is for developers and system architects, allowing them access to business requirements models. They can also execute simulations and export reports.
• Blueprint Requirements Center Tester allows automatic functional testing of applications, allowing change testing and wrapping quality assurance into applications, according to Nyland.

The solution supports collaboration for accomplishing work with teams in different locations and has been enhanced for service-oriented architecture and Web services, according to an announcement issued by the company.

The Blueprints Requirements 2007 platform is currently available. The company plans to release a Blueprint Reader free extension, facilitating collaboration, in July of this year.