Ascendant Technology to Resell New Ravenflow Visualization Solution for IBM Rational Requirements Composer

EMERYVILLE, Calif. & AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Ravenflow, the leader in visual requirements definition software, and Ascendant Technology (Atech), a Premier IBM systems integrator, today announced the immediate availability of RAVEN Visual Analyzer for IBM Rational Requirements Composer, a seamless embedded plug-in for IBM® Rational Requirements Composer™ (RRC) that improves the way stakeholders elicit, specify and validate business requirements. By visualizing before developing, organizations can dramatically cut implementation time and delivery cost of the resulting solution. Atech will be selling RAVEN Visual Analyzer for Rational Requirements Composer as part of its Requirements Engineering practice.

“RAVEN Visual Analyzer for Rational Requirements Composer provides the most cost-effective way for organizations to define and validate the requirements for creating business applications before the expensive process of developing code,” said Sam Fatigato, Chief Executive Officer of Ascendant Technology.

“Ascendant Technology plays a crucial leadership role in applying IBM Rational technology, as recognized by IBM with the 2009 Rational Beacon Award,” said Susan Boers, President and Chief Executive Officer of Ravenflow. “Atech’s Software Engineering practice focus surrounding Rational Requirements Composer and RAVEN Visual Analyzer will support business teams to communicate and collaborate better with developers to provide maximum leverage in terms of enabling business-driven development. The combination of both products brings robust requirements analysis and visualization capabilities to stakeholders.”

IBM Rational Requirements Composer enables visual and textual requirements definition in a collaborative environment, enabling business and IT stakeholders to work more closely together as they capture business objectives and define high quality software requirements. RAVEN Visual Analyzer allows users to perform the following key functions directly within RRC:

• Automatically generate and insert business-friendly Activity Diagrams into any of RRC’s requirements editors.
• Analyze use case narratives, correct any errors, and insert the resulting Activity Diagram in RRC.
• Extend RAVEN-generated terms to the Enterprise Glossary that comes with RRC for better consistency.
• Highlight errors in process or use case text to help identify missing or ambiguous requirements.
• Preview RAVEN Activity Diagrams in a separate window then drag & drop them into any RRC editor.

RAVEN users report a dramatic reduction in the total time it takes to define and confirm business requirements with key stakeholders. Instead of weeks and months business requirements can be defined in just a number of days, accelerating project schedules while increasing stakeholder confidence that the application will be delivered as desired. RAVEN also helps produce higher quality requirements, thereby reducing development costs by minimizing the amount of rework required downstream.

As part of the product launch Ascendant Technology and Ravenflow are offering a series of live webcasts that highlight the new capabilities. Registration for this webinar series is open at www.ravenflow.com.

About Ascendant Technology

Ascendant Technology (Atech) is the only end-to-end solution provider and software reseller dedicated to IBM technology specializing in web-based solutions. Atech works comprehensively across all five IBM software pillars – Lotus, WebSphere, Tivoli, Rational and Information Management brands – to create elegant portal, commerce and rich internet applications. From business analysis and user experience through architecture, development and post deployment support, Atech provides value through industry acumen, technology expertise, and a suite of assets designed to speed deployment and time to value. Atech has local offices across the US and in Europe, Brazil and India. Atech is recognized as a Premier IBM business partner and has garnered numerous IBM awards in the Lotus, WebSphere and Rational brands, including best portal solution and SOA innovator.

About Ravenflow

Ravenflow is the leading provider of visual requirements definition software that allows companies to gain better insight, clarity, and quality in their process improvement and application development projects. Leveraging a uniquely business-driven and process-based approach, Ravenflow changes the way companies look at requirements by empowering business analysts to rapidly visualize and produce clear specifications of their business process workflows, business use cases, and business application needs. Ravenflow recently was named the 2009 Partner of the Year by IBM Rational, received the 2009 Jolt Productivity Award, and was selected as a Gartner "Cool Vendor in Application Development."

Ravenflow is based in Emeryville, CA; for more information, please visit www.ravenflow.com.

All products mentioned in the release are trademarks or registered trademarks of Ravenflow. All other trademarks, trade names, and/or product names are used solely for the purpose of identification and are the property of their respective owners.