"One of the features that the developers like is that they can retrieve what they need with the tool. They don't have to go through some process or request something be done by another team. They can get the programs they need, compile them, retrieve the JCL and alter the JCL if they need to, and put these programs wherever they need to go for their testing."
"We had parallel development before, but the way ISPW implements it is better. It has more control and oversight of the process, whereas before, it was like the Wild West. Everybody could have their own package with their own version of the component in it... ISPW is constantly aware of it. It notifies when someone else is using or has a different version of that component."
"I think the most valuable features are code management, code deployment, and code generation. The fact that those three features are included makes BMC Compuware ISPW a robust product. If one of those features was missing, it would be less robust and less interesting. But because it has those three features, it is a very good solution for code development and management."
"It does our CICS NEWCOPYs and our Db2 binds for us, whereas before, that was a manual process. It takes a lot of the workload off of the operations folks and off the DBAs."
"The visual ability to see potential downstream impacts to changes being made assists our developers in understanding the impact associated with their change."
"The product helps with version control. I can build, develop, test and deploy applications from a single platform."
"The solution has a good framework that is user friendly and scalable."
"I am not familiar with any issues with respect to stability, and I have never seen Team System crash."
"Visual Studio Team System is the most powerful IDE available in the market."
"The most valuable feature is the code management, where there is sharing of code for developers and it is distributed within the organization."
"The solution’s fast performance is its most valuable feature."
"The product is efficient."
"Microsoft makes great products. They are quite robust."
"There are some features that are not well documented, so documentation could use a little help, on things like setting up deployment and which structures in the database correspond to which tables."
"Better discussions to identify inventory prior to the start of any migration would be helpful for potential clients that have applications with code that is not modified often."
"When you're setting up the parameters for how ISPW will work in your shop, there are a lot of questions that have to be answered... BMC Compuware should have more in-depth explanations about what the choices in each question mean. If you pick A, what does that mean has to happen? What does that impact? If you pick B, what does that mean? What does that impact?"
"The solution could be improved by being better integrated with the open world. In the next release, I would like to have the ability to work in an open environment whilst remaining integrated with the legacy environment."
"One thing I would really like to see some improvement on is the promotion diagnostic messages. It invokes utilities "under the covers" to copy components, and it does not echo back any of the error messages from those utilities."
"When you go into the front-end, the web portal, if, for example, you pick up an issue, it would be ideal if the branch was automatically created in the repository. Right now, this isn't the case."
"I would say compared to some more modern tools which are made to work offline, with this solution you have to be connected all of the time and with a central server. In our case, it's not a big problem because we all work on-premises, but it can be an issue if you have teams in different locations."
"I have seen customizations with Team System that allowed it to integrate into other ticketing systems like Jira, which would be a really nice feature to see."
"The product should be priced better."
"I would like to see the inclusion of more programming languages, especially better support for Java."
"The technical support could be better."
"The product must improve its stability."
"The overall customer support needs to improve."
BMC Compuware ISPW is ranked 2nd in Software Configuration Management with 5 reviews while Visual Studio Team System is ranked 3rd in Software Configuration Management with 14 reviews. BMC Compuware ISPW is rated 8.6, while Visual Studio Team System is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of BMC Compuware ISPW writes "Tracks code during the change process so that more than one group could have code checked out for change. ISPW provides this tracking info real time helping move toward a more Agile environment". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Visual Studio Team System writes "A scalable and efficient solution that can be used to perform tasks involved in developing information systems". BMC Compuware ISPW is most compared with Endevor and OpenText ChangeMan ZMF, whereas Visual Studio Team System is most compared with .
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