Catapult Public Relations

Dave West Joins Tasktop as Chief Product Officer

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:54:02 +0000

West to realize his passion for optimizing the value stream of software delivery by driving Tasktopâ��s product vision and roadmap Vancouver, British Columbia â�� April 26, 2012 â�� Tasktop Technologies (tasktop.com),Â creator of Eclipse Mylyn and a leader in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Automation solutions, today announced that Dave West has joined the company as Chief Product Officer. As one of the foremost software development thought leaders and the most recognized analyst in Agile and ALM, West will lead the strategic direction of Tasktopâ��s product line and market position, and help strengthen Tasktopâ��s executive leadership team as it builds a transformative business that continues to drive major improvements in the software industry. â��Daveâ��s thought leadership has been a key driver in the adoption of Agile and in the ALM modernizations underway at large-scale software organizations,â�� said Mik Kersten, CEO of Tasktop Technologies and creator of the Eclipse Mylyn open source project. â��His insights on how cross-vendor integration have become the main bottleneck on the promised ROI, and the massive opportunity that Tasktop has to connect the software lifecycle across the software supply chain and open source ecosystem, will help drive our vision and product roadmap for overhauling the value chain of software delivery.â�� West has helped advance many modern software development processes, including Agile and Lean methodologies, process improvement, and project and requirements management. His experience includes hands-on development, executive consulting, project management and industry analysis. He led the development of the Rational Unified Process (RUP) for IBM/Rational, and also managed the development of IBM solutions for financial services, product development and government applications. Most recently, West served as vice president, research director at Forrester, where he worked with global IT organizations and solutions providers to define, drive and advance major Agile-based methodology breakthroughs. He is a frequent keynote speaker at industry conferences and is a widely published author of articles and research reports, along with his acclaimed book: Head First Object-Oriented Analysis and Design. â��Tasktop is a company that is making a major difference in the evolution and improvement of the software industry,â�� said West. â��Its Tasktop Sync and Dev product lines, as well as the Mylyn open source project and ecosystem of integrations, address some of the biggest issues IT organizations face as they move to automate ALM and improve collaboration across the enterprise. The type of integration, automation and synchronization that Tasktop offers is fostering true ALM success, and I look forward to building on the innovation the company offers to meet the infrastructure-level needs of software organizations.â�� Tasktop helps software organizations implement and automate enterprise-wide Agile and ALM modernization initiatives by connecting both developers, through Tasktop Dev, and cross-functional enterprise teams, through Tasktop Sync. As part of Tasktop Sync, Sync Studio extends the value of its Task Federationâ�¢ platform by making it dramatically easier for organizations to connect, configure and maintain medium- and large-scale ALM infrastructures. Together, all Tasktop products leverage the Eclipse Mylyn task-based integration framework to provide a more strategic and lightweight synchronization solution than standard REST API and pure data-store integrations. Its tools provide visibility into ALM work flow and frameworks, and the real-time data sharing of cross-function activities that IT organizations need to synchronize and automate development and deployment of quality software. West joins Kersten and Tasktop president and COO Neelan Choksi on Tasktopâ��s executive leadership team. He will work side-by-side with Kersten on the product vision, platform design and partner ecosystem strategies, and with Choksi on company growth and business development initiatives. West also will continue his work to advance Agile success at an industry level through thought leadership, and develop new ideas to further streamline and improve the software development and delivery lifecycle. Connect With Others About this Story: Tweet This: @Tasktop today announced @DavidJWest as new Chief Product Officer â�� Read why Dave joined the #Tasktop team at (http://tasktop.com/blog/tasktop/dave-west-joined-tasktop) #ALM Helpful Links â�¢ Tasktop Technologies â�¢ Tasktop Blog on Announcement â�¢ Tasktop Twitter About Tasktop Technologies Tasktop Technologies is the industryâ��s leading provider of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Automation and integration software. Thousands of IT organizations depend on Tasktopâ��s commercial and open source solutions to connect developers, testers, business analysts and project managers who use a wide variety of Agile and ALM tools hosted both on premise and in the cloud. By automating and connecting the software lifecycle, Tasktop is solving one of the biggest challenges facing large-scale software delivery organizations â�� the complete disconnect and brittle integrations of ALM tools. Its Task Federationâ�¢ technology delivers on the promise of a unified ALM stack through a partner ecosystem that integrates more than 70 disparate ALM tools with real-time connectivity and cross-repository workflow support. Tasktop created and leads the Eclipse Mylyn project, with more than 1 million downloads per month, upon which its commercial Tasktop Sync ALM middleware and Tasktop Dev IDE tools are based. All Tasktop tools are built to enable organizations to gain a competitive advantage in todayâ��s software-driven economy by providing the ALM Automationâ�¢ needed to gain visibility, predictability and productivity across the software development lifecycle. For more information, visit (http://tasktop.com). # # # Media Contact: Christie Denniston Catapult PR-IR cdenniston@catapultpr-ir.com O: 303-581-7760, ext. 13 M: 303-827-5164

TASKTOP’S MIK KERSTEN AND INDEPENDENT RESEARCH ANALYST DAVE WEST TO PRESENT WEBINAR ON DEPLOYING ALM2.0+ ACROSS THE ENTERPRISE

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 18:38:32 +0000

Tearing down IT organizational silos and promoting collaboration through ALM tool integration strategies lead to successful Agile2.0+ initiativesÂ Â

WHO:Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Mik Kersten â�� CEO and founder of Tasktop Technologies (www.tasktop.com) Kersten is the creator of the Eclipse Mylyn open source project and inventor of the task-focused interface. At Tasktop he provides the technical vision behind Tasktop Dev for desktop-based developer productivity and Tasktop Sync for enterprise ALM automation and synchronization. Featured Speaker: Dave West â�� vice president and research director at Forrester Research, Inc. (www.forrester.com) West is a leading expert on software development process, Agile development, Lean thinking, process improvement, project management and requirements management. His interest in software modelingÂ and application development led to his authoring of the book,Â Head First Object-Oriented Analysis and Design. He also covers the area of product development and its relationship with software systems development. WHAT:Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Getting ALM2.0+ to Work For many organizations, the ability to deliver software is fundamental to business success. New products, services, updates to channels, pricing or promotion require changes to applications and websites. Organizations are now looking to Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) to provide visibility into this increasingly core business process.Â ALM promises the benefits of business management to the practice of software delivery. ALM2.0+ describes the next generation of practices that broaden the lifecycle to include operations and the business, while adding functionality for planning and collaboration. West and Kersten will present patterns for successful ALM adoption for mid- and large-scale organizations, and highlight how organizations can incrementally obtain the benefits of ALM by connecting siloes â�� one stakeholder at a time.Â The pair will draw on their year of software development experience to define a series of ALM integration patterns and describe how successful organizations are delivering software more efficiently with ALM2.0+ today. WHEN:Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Thurs., April. 19, 9 to 10 a.m. Pacific (Noon Eastern) INFO:Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â To register for the webinar please visit: (http://go.tasktop.com/forrester-webinar-registration.html).Â To arrange an interview with Mik Kersten please contact Christie Denniston at 303-581-7760 or by email at (cdenniston@catapultpr-ir.com).

Tasktop’s New Sync Studio Provides First Visual ALM Mapping and Monitoring Tool for ALM Architects

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 17:24:14 +0000

Â IT Organizations Gain New Levels of Visibility into Heterogeneous ALM Architectures to Author and Manage Task and Data Flow between Best-of-Breed ALM Tools

VANCOUVER and RESTON VA (EclipseCon 2012, Booth #25), March 27, 2012 â�� Tasktop Technologies (www.tasktop.com), creators of Eclipse Mylyn and a leader in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Automation solutions, today announced Sync Studio, an extension of its Task Federationâ�¢ platform that makes it dramatically easier for organizations to connect, configure and maintain medium- and large-scale ALM infrastructures. Offered as a new component of Tasktop Sync, Sync Studio provides visual cross-ALM system task and workflow mapping, ALM architecture design, monitoring tools to ease integration maintenance and alert notifications for project and system administrators. â��As weâ��ve been rolling out Tasktop Sync over the past year to IT organizations trying to automate Agile ALM and DevOps architectures across the enterprise, the process of taking inventory and managing integrations between all of their disparate tools has become extremely messy, frustrating and time-consuming,â�� said Mik Kersten, CEO of Tasktop Technologies and creator of the Eclipse Mylyn open source project. â��Sync Studio makes it possible for software delivery organizations to gain control of this chaos by providing a single tool for viewing the design, integration and performance of todayâ��s complex ALM architectures with an easy-to-use visual design and authoring tool.â�� Tasktop continues to solve major challenges for software organizations that are implementing enterprise-wide Agile and ALM modernization initiatives by connecting both developers, through Tasktop Dev, and cross-functional enterprise teams, through Tasktop Sync, to automate the entire application lifecycle. All Tasktop products leverage the Eclipse Mylyn task-based integration framework to provide a more strategic and lightweight synchronization solution than standard REST API and pure data-store integrations. Its tools provide visibility into ALM work flow, real-time data sharing of cross-function activities and context into actual performance and business value. With Sync Studio, the company continues to help IT organizations synchronize and automate development processes to deliver market value quicker, reduce inefficiencies and promote collaboration and innovation by connecting individuals and teams across the enterprise. â��Standard integration of ALM tools is typically limited since it only addresses point-to-point functionality and can then lack the comprehensive visibility, interoperability and traceability needed for a fully synchronized ALM tool stack,â�� said Melinda Ballou, program director for the Application Lifecycle Management and Executive Strategies service at IDC, a research advisory firm headquartered in Framingham, MA. â��With software driving innovation and with challenges resulting from complex ALM infrastructure, complex sourcing and silo-ed departments, IT organizations need to be able to architect and gain control of automated ALM solutions. This automation is sorely needed to help drive effective software delivery and competitive benefits.â�� To help IT organizations scale Tasktop Sync deployments and better manage the growing number of ALM systems in a typical tool stack, Sync Studio provides a whole new set of ALM infrastructure management tools. Capabilities include:

A Unified View across the ALM Stack: Sync Studio presents ALM architects and administrators with a comprehensive and â��liveâ�� architectural view of current tools and processes, and the associated interdependencies and roadblocks that need to be addressed.
Visual Mapping for ALM Administrators: Sync Studio provides automated mapping capabilities for ALM administrators to author and configure task, data and workflow connectivity and integration between ALM servers.
Cross-repository Monitoring and Administration: Sync Studio helps maintain the health and performance of enterprise-wide ALM architectures through the regular monitoring of inter-tool functionality and centralized administration of changes, maintenance, trouble-shooting and alert notifications.
End-to-end Traceability for the Lifecycle: through its Task Federation platform, Sync Studio provides complete ALM traceability that is available through the visual mapping and visibility capabilities now available in the tool.

In addition to Sync Studio, Tasktop also is introducing Tasktop Sync 2.3 with new integrations for ThoughtWorksâ�� Mingle and Accept360, as well as an updated Mylyn-based Sync integration for IBM Rational Team Concert. It is part of a coordinated Tasktop rollout that also includes Tasktop Dev 2.3 and builds on the new Eclipse Mylyn 3.7. Tasktop Dev now includes support for Gerrit and the Jenkins continuous integration server, and new workspace provisioning tools for HP ALM. With these additions, Tasktop now supports more than 70 ALM tools. Availability Tasktop Sync 2.3 with Sync Studio is being demonstrated now at EclipseCon 2012 (http://www.eclipsecon.org/2012/) and will be generally available on April 17.Â Tasktop Dev 2.3 is available today. About Tasktop Technologies Tasktop Technologies is the industryâ��s leading provider of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Automation and integration software. Thousands of IT organizations depend on Tasktopâ��s commercial and open source solutions to connect developers, testers, business analysts and project managers who use a wide variety of Agile and ALM tools hosted both on premise and in the cloud.Â By automating and connecting the software lifecycle, Tasktop is solving one of the biggest challenge facing large-scale software delivery organizations â�� the complete disconnect and brittle integrations of ALM tools. Its Task Federationâ�¢ technology delivers on the promise of a unified ALM stack through a partner ecosystem that integrates more than 70 disparate ALM tools with real-time connectivity and cross-repository workflow support.Â Tasktop created and leads the Eclipse Mylyn project, with more than 1 million downloads per month, upon which its commercial Tasktop Sync ALM middleware and Tasktop Dev IDE tools. All Tasktop tools are built to enable organizations to gain a competitive advantage in todayâ��s software-driven economy by providing the ALM Automationâ�¢ needed to gain visibility, predictability and productivity across the software development lifecycle.Â For more information, visit http://tasktop.com.

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Media Contact:

Christie Denniston

Catapult PR-IR

cdenniston@catapultpr-ir.com

O: 303-581-7760, ext. 13

M: 303-827-5164

TASKTOP’S MIK KERSTEN TO SHARE INSIGHTS INTO ALM AUTOMATION AND JAVA BUILD AND CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION AT JAVAONE 2011

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 18:07:19 +0000

Kersten to outline ALM Automation with Mylyn and Hudson, and moderate panel discussion on the Future of Java Build and Continuous Integration

WHO: Mik Kersten - CEO and founder of Tasktop Technologies (www.tasktop.com)

Kersten is the creator of the Eclipse Mylyn open source project and inventor of the task-focused interface. At Tasktop he provides the technical vision behind Tasktop Dev for developer productivity and tool integration and Tasktop Sync for enterprise ALM synchronization.

WHAT: "Future of Java Build and Continuous Integration"

Mon., Oct. 3, 2011, 11 a.m. Pacific in Hotel Nikko - Nikko Ballroom II/III

Not long ago, developers built and deployed Java applications with brittle scripts and builds invoked from developers' desktops. Given the complexity of today's applications and the shift of the deployment destination from data center to cloud, Java build is due for an overhaul. The increased roles of DevOps, Agile planning and Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) are putting new requirements on the automation needed in the modern build stack, while the rapid adoption of Hudson is making clear the central role of Continuous Integration (CI) as the hub of a Java application development and deployment. This panel will debate approaches to modernizing the build, CI and ALM infrastructure to help scale the productivity of development teams and leverage the latest array of build, test and deployment solutions.

"ALM Automation with Mylyn and Hudson"

Tues., Oct. 4, 2011, noon - 1 p.m. Pacific in Parc 55 - Divisidero

With the shift to PaaS and a new breed of open source ALM tools, the deployment loop of enterprise apps is going through its biggest transition since the creation of Java. Kersten will explore connecting the enterprise Java stack to cloud deployment via task-focused continuous integration based on Hudson. Distributed version control systems, code review and Agile planning, based on the Eclipse Mylyn interoperability platform, can be used to create a new level of connectivity and automation between the team and the running application. This talk outlines a roadmap for transforming productivity by connecting developers' desktops to the release, and automating all the steps in between, from provisioning the IDE to monitoring the running application.

WHERE: JavaOne 2011 booth (#5004)

San Francisco, CA

INFO: Tasktop is exhibiting at JavaOne in booth #5004. For more information and to arrange an interview with Mik Kersten please contact Christie Denniston at 303-581-7760 or by email at (cdenniston@catapultpr-ir.com).

TASKTOP ADDS DR. BRIAN BARRY TO BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Fri, 06 May 2011 01:00:38 +0000

TASKTOP ADDS DR. BRIAN BARRY TO BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Tasktop continues to build out its management and director teams with appointment of Barry, a technical leader in IDE platforms and enterprise Agile development

VANCOUVER, BC, May 5, 2011 - Tasktop Technologies (www.tasktop.com), creators of the Eclipse Mylyn open source tools and a leader in Agile Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) integration and productivity, today announced the addition of Dr. Brian Barry to its board of directors. Barry brings more than 20 years of technical and business leadership experience working with a range of highly successful technology companies, including Object Technology International (OTI), developers of the Eclipse IDE platform. Barry's experience and guidance will help Tasktop accelerate its growth and develop innovative solutions for enterprise software development and knowledge worker productivity.

"Brian's vision and leadership at OTI were instrumental to creating the Eclipse platform and ecosystem," said Mik Kersten, CEO of Tasktop and creator of the open source Eclipse Mylyn project. "We are honored to have Brian's experience guiding Tasktop in our mission to transform the application lifecycle and task management space into a more developer friendly and productive experience. We look forward to Brian's input as we work to build a great company and scale our business to meet growing demand for Tasktop innovation."

Dr. Barry is currently Chief Technology Officer of XIA Systems, and CEO of Bedarra Research Labs. From 1991 to 2002 he served as Chief Scientist, CEO, president and CTO at Object Technology International (OTI), Inc. Under his leadership OTI developed the Eclipse IDE Platform, IBM VisualAge for Java and IBM VisualAge MicroEdition for embedded systems. Dr. Barry has more than 20 years of experience in the design and implementation of object-oriented and component-based systems, including distributed, client/server, embedded and real-time applications. He was a charter member of the ANSI Smalltalk committee and a co-author of the Smalltalk standard. He holds a Ph.D. from Queen's University.

Tasktop created its task management tools to help developers be more productive by making it effortless for them to organize their work around tasks. Serving as an ALM interoperability suite, Tasktop Enterprise has become the standard for integrating disparate development tools and platforms that are the reality for today's enterprise software development organizations. By providing traceability and knowledge sharing between tools and platforms that are often provided by separate companies, Tasktop helps reduce the complexity and challenges of successfully scaling Agile programs beyond small teams. Organizations using Tasktop are able to integrate and gain added value from heterogeneous systems, improve the happiness and productivity of development teams, and integrate and manage emerging technology platforms, such as cloud computing and mobile applications, into existing development practices.

About Tasktop Technologies

Tasktop Technologies is the company behind the Eclipse Mylyn ALM integration framework and its revolutionary task-focused interface technology. The task-focused interface is proven to make developers more productive by showing only the relevant information for each task, dramatically reducing search time and facilitating multitasking. Tasktop Enterprise is the company's commercial product based on Mylyn, with task-focused support for web browsing, time tracking, documents, email, calendars and commercial ALM components. Tasktop also provides consulting, connector development services and training to the growing number of companies adopting the task-focused paradigm and tools. For more information, please visit (www.tasktop.com).

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Media Contact:

Christie Denniston

Catapult PR-IR

cdennistion@catapultpr-ir.com

O: 303-584-7760, ext. 13

M: 303-827-5164