IBM, Rational, and EUP

	IBM, Rational, and EUP
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For several years now my vision for the Unified Process (UP) is clearly much more robust than the vision that the folks at Rational Corporation have for it. This was obvious in my initial article, Enhancing the Unified Process published in the October 1999 issue of Software Development, from my four Unified Process books, and should continue to be obvious from my latest writings posted at this site. Figure 1 depicts the differences between the Enterprise Unified Process^TM (EUP) and the Rational Unified Process (RUP) nicely.

Figure 1. Extending the RUP with the EUP v2004.

For several reasons the RUP team at Rational has not yet chosen to adopt the extensions to the lifecycle that I have suggested -- the Production Phase, the Retirement Phase, the Operations and Support discipline, and the Enterprise Disciplines -- which I have found disappointing. Although they have made significant improvements in the RUP, many of which I suggested in the four books I might add, they never the less have not been motivated to extend the lifecycle in the directions that I would like to see. Until now.

In December of 2002 IBM announced its purchase of Rational Corporation, a very good move on their part I suspect. Rational and IBM had been working together very well for several years and I truly believe that this purchase is a very good move for IBM as it adds many new development tools to their product line as well as enhances their services offerings. Over the next several months there will be the usual re-organizations and re-strategizations at Rational to reflect the fact that they are now a part of a much larger organization.

So what does this have to do with the EUP? IBM clearly understands the needs of large organizations and has a very good understanding of enterprise issues. More importantly, IBM has a much wider product range than Rational does. It has products that are applicable to the Operations and Support discipline and understands the underlying processes required to use them effectively. Similarly it has products applicable to the Enterprise Management discipline, to the Production phase, and to the Retirement phase. More importantly IBM offers consulting services that are applicable to these endeavors. The point is that now that Rational is part of an organization with a much more robust line of products and services it is only a matter of time until it recognizes the need to take the RUP in the same direction that I have taken the EUP.

I look forward to helping IBM and its clients to expand their vision of the RUP into something that truly reflects the needs of real-world enterprises.