Intelligent agents stop runaway IT costs

Today the Swedish company Jaczone AB is launching WayPointer. WayPointer helps software developers to construct systems more efficiently and of the highest quality. Runaway IT costs are a problem faced by many companies. Introducing WayPointer is one way for companies to turn this trend around and gain better control of their development projects and thereby cut costs. WayPointer offers a set of software agents that provide advice and instructions about how to best develop software. Each agent knows how best to carry out a specific task in a project. Each developer in a project has his/her personal set of agents and thereby gets advice and suggestions that are adapted and applicable to his/her specific work.

Three times in my life Ive felt that what Im involved in will lead to radical changes in how software is developed. This is the third time," says Dr. Ivar Jacobson, Vice President of Process Strategy at the Rational Software Corporation and one of the founders of Jaczone.

WayPointer increases the quality of a software developers work
Experienced developers get help to automate routine tasks, as well as suggestions for sophisticated solutions. Beginners are given help to get started plus detailed step-by-step guidance. WayPointer also facilitates the quality assurance of a system by implementing automatic inspection of the work that is done.

WayPointer can be adapted to suit an organizations specific needs and practices for systems development. Knowledge can thereby be passed on from project to project. This enables all the developers to acquire the information and automation needed to develop systems consistently and efficiently. Since developers are thereby helped to work correctly from the start, they can deliver more rapidly. Training costs are reduced and no developer needs to sit and wait for assistance, since WayPointer acts as a mentor who is always available.

WayPointer is the missing link between process and UML-based modeling tools. It bridges the gap between process description and process implementation while at the same time automating tedious activities which often frustrate designers. For experienced designers WayPointer streamlines and accelerates the process of software design. WayPointers open rule-based architecture allows Jaczone process experts to easily specialize for industry-specific or company-specific best practices, platforms or tools.", says Prof. Dave Thomas and CEO of Bedarra Corp.

A beta version of WayPointer has been available since October. It has been used and evaluated by about a dozen Swedish companies with a very positive response.

Our experience of WayPointer during our evaluation of the beta version is that the tool is an easily used support for both new and experienced systems analysts and that it reduces routine work and raises the quality of models and specifications," says Ellen Stang Lund of SEB IT Partner.

WayPointers educational qualities make learning more efficient and the work more fun. We are convinced that WayPointer will thereby contribute to reduced training and mentorship costs during the introduction of RUP," says Tomas Lundström of Anoto.

No doubt about the advantages
A number of major companies in completely different industries have evaluated our product.
We are continuously working in close contact with the market in order to understand and be able to satisfy our customers needs. This has clearly paid off. WayPointer has been received extremely positively." says Agneta Jacobson, President of Jaczone AB.

Jaczone AB is a technology partner of Rational Software and WayPointer is currently integrated with Rationals tools.

We feel that WayPointer is a very interesting tool that can significantly facilitate the work of requirements analysts and architects. WayPointer can help our customers to get started quickly and work according to the Rational Unified Process," says Anders Torelm, Country Manager of Rational Software Nordic AB.