New analysis from Omdia’s Cloud Software & Services Intelligence Service shows that regulated software lifecycle management (RSLM) solutions is a thriving market with recurrent growth as software-defined products continue to take over product development.
The application lifecycle management (ALM) market is essentially split between a focus on applications that run the business, such as billing, customer care, logistics, etc., an area Omdia refers to as enterprise IT ALM, and the software that goes into products and services, the outcome of digital transformation or the fourth industrial revolution, different terms for how millions of lines of code now run inside modern vehicles, to take just one example – Omdia calls this RSLM.
The RSLM market segment is characterized by being highly regulated, often with large and complex software applications that can have thousands of components, variations, and parameters. Moreover, these applications are often mission critical to the business, as well as have safety-critical elements. Traditional enterprise ALM is not designed to manage this type of application, whereas the vendor products selected in the Omdia RSLM Universe have features addressing these needs.
“RSLM suites are integrated end-to-end across the software development lifecycle, enabling traceability and auditability. As the management function they are designed to integrate with tools that perform the design and development functions, gathering data that is used to monitor the health of the development process,” explained Michael Azoff, Chief Analyst in Omdia’s Cloud and Data Center research practice. “ALM when it exists in the enterprise IT market is typically comprised of multiple products and not fit for regulated or complex applications, in contrast engineering manufacturing, medical devices, and financial engineering, to name just a few of the complex, regulated industries, must have RSLM solutions to reduce risk and create high quality software production.”
