Rational Strengthens Tool Line Through Its Purchase of NeuVis

Rational Software Corp.s recent acquisition of NeuVis Inc. strengthens Rationals position in providing tools for enterprise-level application development.

As part of the purchase, Rational, of Lexington, Mass., gets 26 employees of NeuVis, based in Shelton, Conn., as well as NeuVis development technology for building n-tier applications.

NeuVis flagship product is an MDA (model-driven application), architecture-based development tool for creating enterprise-class, n-tier applications that complements Rationals product line, the company said. For example, Unified Modeling Language models built with Rational modeling products can drive a development effort using NeuVis technology; artifacts built using NeuVis technology can be managed in Rationals software configuration management solutions—such as Rational ClearCase—and tested using Rationals testing tools, such as Rational Suite TestStudio.

Rikki Kirzner, an analyst at International Data Corp., said, "Rational adds capability to its own product line with this acquisition." However, Kirzner, in Framingham, Mass., added that "things will get more interesting once all the NeuVis technology is integrated into the Rational product line." Kirzner said integrating NeuVis technology into the Rational line will be "a big challenge" because Rational will have to "strip out the best parts of NeuVis solution and put it into [Rational] XDE."

Roger Oberg, vice president of Rational, said the acquisition gives Rational "a proven solution to enterprise software development challenges that complements Rationals current products." Oberg said there will be few problems integrating NeuVis products.

"NeuVis product is already integrated with both Rational Rose and Rational ClearCase, two of Rationals most popular products," Oberg said. "Both companies products were designed to be extensible. During the coming months, we expect to discover other ways to integrate NeuVis technology with Rationals broad set of application development solutions."

Meanwhile, Richard Borenstein, CEO of Codagen Technologies Inc., of Montreal, which competes with NeuVis, said Rationals acquisition helps validate the code generation and MDA software markets.

However, "Rational has been trying to extend deeper into the customer base" with its model-driven offerings, Borenstein said. "They have some challenges there."