Compuware's DevPartner Studio Testing Solution Chosen By Credit Suisse First Boston

A reason behind Credit Suisse First Boston's choice of DevPartner Studio is that it is Windows 2000-compliant. The company was already working closely with Microsoft and had been involved in trials of early releases of Windows 2000. Credit Suisse First Boston is now using Windows 2000 as a strategic platform across the company and it was therefore crucial that the chosen testing tool had Windows 2000 capabilities.

In the world of investment banking, change is constant. Trends such as globalisation, deregulation and consolidation, and the enormous leaps in information technology and the Internet mean that the investment process has been shortened to a matter of weeks, rather than months or years. For leading global investment banking firms such as Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB), technology plays a major role in this process.

Bryan Boreham, a Director and Chief Technology Officer of Credit Suisse First Boston, comments, "Because today's business environment is constantly evolving - CSFB's IT systems need to be one step ahead."

Reliability and Availability are Key

As a leading global investment bank, Credit Suisse First Boston provides comprehensive financial advisory, capital raising, sales and trading and financial products for users and suppliers of capital around the world. The company employs a large number of developers to build bespoke software. Quality and reliability of these applications is key. Mr Boreham comments, "Reliable IT systems are crucial in the fast-moving world of investment banking. We need to make sure that when our employees need to use an application, it is constantly available and of high quality. DevPartner Studio ensures that our applications are performing properly."

Improving Developer Productivity

The development of complex software applications is often hidden from the business, but it is an area in which business functionality can be truly honed. Highly skilled developers are often responsible for the killer application that helps make a company successful, but they are also required to devote time to more low-level tasks such as identifying and fixing software bugs. Recognising this, Credit Suisse First Boston made a decision to shift its developers' focus away from troubleshooting by automating the testing and debugging of its software applications. The company turned to Compuware for a solution and has been using its DevPartner Studio toolset since October 1999.

DevPartner Studio is a software development productivity tool that accelerates the development of distributed and other component-based applications at Credit Suisse First Boston. By automating time-consuming tasks such as code- and system-checking for bugs and memory leaks, it enables the company's IT department to track down and rectify application problems more quickly and efficiently. This, in turn, helps the company to keep its internal IT systems up and running at all times, increases developer productivity and reduces the length of the software development cycle.

"DevPartner Studio is a very powerful tool," says Mr Boreham. "CSFB's developers are using its BoundsChecker and performance analysis capabilities to quickly identify potential coding issues, run-time errors and performance problems and deliver reliable, high performance components on time. This system has greatly speeded up the software development cycle, allowing our firm to deliver reliable components in a much shorter time, which is a requirement in our business."

Maximise Experienced Developers Skills

According to International Data Corporation (IDC), software developers spend approximately 50 per cent of their time finding and fixing code errors. Credit Suisse First Boston was keen that time spent on these activities was kept to a minimum so that developer productivity could be increased.

Mr Boreham explains, "CSFB has a large team of experienced developers and we have to make sure their skills are being put to the best use - not just testing and debugging. By automating this process through DevPartner Studio, our developers can focus on delivering real business functionality."

Reducing Time-to-Market

Increased developer productivity leads to reduced time-to-market for bespoke software applications. Since deploying DevPartner Studio, the company has seen a reduction in the time taken for applications to reach the desktop. "With this kind of automated checking in place, our developers do not need such a lengthy test phase and can roll out the applications that they have developed to the desktop much quicker," says Mr Boreham.

Microsoft Windows 2000 now a Strategic Platform

Another reason behind Credit Suisse First Boston's choice of DevPartner Studio is that it is Windows 2000-compliant. The company was already working closely with Microsoft and had been involved in trials of early releases of Windows 2000. Credit Suisse First Boston is now using Windows 2000 as a strategic platform across the company and it was therefore crucial that the chosen testing tool had Windows 2000 capabilities. Mr Boreham explains, "there are in excess of 100 solid users who are building in-house applications on the Windows NT and Windows 2000 platforms. It is a very useful tool to be able to tap into when there is a problem." Credit Suisse First Boston is already working on a project to converge the company on a common architecture and DevPartner Studio, like other software solutions used across the company, will play an important role in this.

About Credit Suisse First Boston

Credit Suisse First Boston is a leading global investment banking firm, providing comprehensive financial advisory, capital raising, sales and trading, and financial products for wholesale users and suppliers of capital around the world. It operates in 57 offices across more than 37 countries and six continents and has over 15,000 staff. Credit Suisse First Boston is one of the world's largest securities firms in terms of financial resources, with approximately $9.8 billion in revenues in 1999 and $7.8 billion in equity and $275 billion in assets as of December 31, 1999. The Firm is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Zurich-based Credit Suisse Group.

For more information on Credit Suisse First Boston, please visit the website at http://www.csfb.com.