'SCM is crucial to software development'

'Change is changeless!' reads the famous old saying, the same now holds true for the process of software development. To keep pace with this continuous change and help software developers coordinate better with each other, there are, what are called Software Configuration Management (SCM) tools. Players in the SCM arena include software makers like Microsoft with Visual SourceSafe, IBM Rational with ClearCase and the freely available CVS (Concurrent Versioning System).

However 'not too miss' is another player called Perforce with its SCM tools coined by the same name. Formed in 1995 by developer Christopher Seiwald, who had bitter experience with the then available SCM tools, the California based company has come a long way and is now looking at spreading awareness about its product in APAC.

What is SCM?

Software configuration management is the process of identifying, organizing & controlling changes to the software during development & maintenance. SCM Operates throughout software development lifecycle (SDLC). From the software developer's perspective, SCM facilitates the development & change implementation activities.






The common features in a SCM tool are:





Support for controlling all types of file

Managing changes

Supporting branching & merging



Identifying & recreating releases


Providing a project view

Importance of SCM in SDLC

SCM tools provide project managers with total control of the entire process of software development. It can track changes made to the code by developers and communicate status of documents and code as well as changes that have been made to them.

Perforce advantage

Perforce is a user friendly, unobtrusive and fast SCM tool that gives project managers total control over the status of various files created during the development process. It is not just a file versioning system but much more than that. One can use its 'rollback' feature to undo changes that have been made to the code. It also has a very elegant 'defect-tracking' system. Speed is the biggest plus of Perforce that is why we call it 'fast SCM system.' Owing to its light footprint, Perforce offers a very short response time and 'never makes users wait. '

It has a very 'easy learning curve' and works well with command line as well as visual interfaces. Its client-server architecture offers 'zero downtime.' Two main advantages of Perforce are its speed and price.

On Competition and market share

Our competitors are Microsoft's Visual SourceSafe, IBM's ClearCase, open source SCM tool called CVS and PVCS from Serena.

We have a very good product at hand, with speed and cost as two major plus. Another area that we are better off than our competitors is support. We offer 24 x 7 support to our clients and I strongly believe that it has contributed greatly to our success.

Presently, we are amongst the top three as far as the user base and revenue is concerned. We have more than 3000 customers world wide and about 120,000 users.

Our company has been profitable for the last 34 quarters and has a turnover of $ 30 million.

Plans for India

The way software industry is growing in India we see a huge opportunity here. We have companies like TCS, Infosys, Sasken, Kyocera-wireless, Net-APP, and Ariba already on our client list and we hope to add a few more soon. We have tied up with Bangalore based Parrus IT Solutions, and they are our exclusive distributors. Parrus has offices in Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and Hyderabad to provide extensive support to our customer base.

Some catching up to do

According to this year's 'PCQuest Developers' Choice Awards' the three products that have made it to the top in this category are Visual SourceSafe, IBM Rational ClearCase and CVS. Developers have also voted for Linux Subversion and Endeavor Change Manager as secondary choices. This data shows 'Perforce' missing, with a good product in hand, I think Perforce needs to do some catching up on the awareness front.