Tool Tiff: IBM Rational Vs. Microsoft

At the IBM Rational Software Development User Conference in Dallas, IBM Rational General Manager Mike Devlin admitted to CRN that relations with Microsoft have cooled since IBM acquired Rational Software in February 2003.

Though Microsoft gives IBM Rational ample access to the technology needed to integrate Rational tools with Visual Studio, Microsoft and IBM Rational are doing "less joint marketing" and hardly any joint selling since IBM bought Rational, Devlin said.

At the conference, IBM Rational previewed Atlantic, the next release of desktop practitioner tools such as Rational Rose and WebSphere Studio Application Developer. The forthcoming Atlantic release will integrate modeling, collaboration and a host of development functionality in a user-friendly interface based on the Eclipse open-source IDE.

Atlantic, expected to be available before the end of the year, sounded eerily similar to the Visual Studio Team System 2005 software Microsoft plans to release by mid-2005, which will feature modeling and collaboration within the Visual Studio IDE.

Though IBM Rational, with its expansive portfolio, clearly has a head start over Microsoft in providing a range of functionality for all aspects of the development life cycle, that capability can be cumbersome to use because it currently is not integrated, said one IBM Rational partner.

"What a huge job that is to integrate the tools now," said Mark Woodka, vice president of sales and marketing at solution provider Flashline, Cleveland. He said creating a more cohesive toolset is a positive strategic move for IBM.