The latest vendor assessment from Forrester Research evaluates "process-centric SCM solutions," which automate software development management processes, enabling development teams to store, track, and manage project assets across the application development lifecycle. Process-centric tools can assist organizations in driving quality improvements through their organizations, an especially important factor in the success in geographically distributed workforces.

Borland Software StarTeam Enterprise Advantage is the market leader for geographically distributed development. Advantages for large, dispersed teams include advanced cross-project search capabilities, file caching to solve the problem of responsiveness when using a centralized data repository, XML-based workflow customization and publish/subscribe functionality to help streamline communications, and secure web-based access to enable working from any Internet-connected computer - especially useful for mobile team members. Borland's press release quotes Marc Brown, senior director of product marketing at Borland: "We believe that distributed development is the single biggest challenge and opportunity software organizations will face over the next two years," - indicating a high-level commitment to serving the distributed workforce market.

Among its competitors, IBM's Rational ClearCase Change Management Solution ranks as the most popular and the strongest offering available today, but gets a thumbs down on customization. Microsoft's brand new offering, Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server, fares well for smaller .NET shops. MKS Integrity Suite, Serena Software ChangeMan Directions,  and SYNERGY/CM and SYNERGY/Change - paired applications from Telelogic - are also included in Forrester's evaluation.

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