SERENA Software Announces Availability of New Desktop Software Configuration Problem Management Tool

Business Wire, Dec 15, 1998

BURLINGAME, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 15, 1998--

SERENA Invites IT Support Staff to Test Cost-Savings

At Their Own Sites With a Special Introductory Offer

SERENA Software, an industry-leading supplier of enterprise software change management solutions, today announced general availability of FULL.CYCLE(TM) Detect Resolve, a sophisticated problem resolution tool that enables IT groups to keep deployed software up-and-running at the business users' desktops. Detect Resolve uses innovative fingerprinting technology to investigate desktop software configuration problems, and to resolve them quickly and cost-effectively, using an approach that is both intelligent and granular. A Detect Resolve agent at the end-user's desktop communicates with IT servers and support staff to create fingerprints that help to diagnose problems down to the smallest faulty component. Then, before prolonged downtime impacts the business, Detect Resolve's mission is to quickly and efficiently repair all faulty components.

Substantial Savings Expected Through Reduction of Software Configuration Problems

"Operational software defects represent very high business costs -- we believe our customers are in dire need of a way to reduce these costs," said Richard A. Doerr, President and CEO of SERENA. According to the Gartner Group, of Stamford CT, fully two-thirds of all calls to Help Desk support staff are software-related, resulting in large costs to any business. "Software configuration problems, resulting in the subsequent loss of business and productivity through end-user downtime, is a significant problem for a large number of our customers," added Marianne Elkholy, SERENA's Vice President of Worldwide Marketing. "Solving problems earlier in the support cycle, using less-costly resources and avoiding those costly desk-side visits, is our goal."

Businesses are indeed anxious for solutions to this costly problem. In research carried out by the Gartner Group on Help Desk operations, it has been shown that for every major application rollout or upgrade, at best case there is one call for every desktop, and at worst two. Of these calls, fully 50% represent break/fix problems. When you consider that 18%-25% of break/fix calls require a desk-side resolution, the cost of keeping desktop software up-and-running is unacceptably high. Detect Resolve, which handles configuration problems with both home-grown and off-the-shelf software, is designed to reduce the costs of these problems across the enterprise. SERENA invites customers to verify these cost savings for themselves.

Introductory Offer Provides Swift Verification of Cost Savings

SERENA has announced an introductory offer that enables customers to roll-out small-scale proof-of-concept implementations to test and prove the cost savings in their own environments, before deploying widely across the enterprise. The Detect Resolve Pilot Pack consists of 250 agents, 2 servers, and 1 administrator, along with up to 16 hours of implementation assistance designed to speed the proof-of-concept phase. The Detect Resolve Pilot Pack is priced at $21,500, and the offer runs until April 30, 1999. Agents run on Windows 95, Windows 98 or NT desktops, while servers require NT 4.0.

SERENA FULL.CYCLE(TM) Desktop

Detect Resolve is the first deliverable of SERENA's FULL.CYCLE(TM) Desktop initiative. FULL.CYCLE(TM) Desktop plans integration of products and partnerships to form an end-to-end solution for software change management across the desktop environment. Integration would be provided to link pre- and post-deployment IT functional areas, and to manage the entire end-to-end software lifecycle. Detect Resolve is a key component in the post-deployment phase of software change management.

About SERENA Software

SERENA Software is a global software and services company providing enterprise software change management solutions. The SERENA FULL.CYCLE(TM) solution increases productivity and reduces cost for all phases of the software life cycle. SERENA is headquartered in Burlingame, Calif. and maintains international offices in Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

For additional information on SERENA Software, please call 650/696-1800, visit the company's web site at www.serena.com, or e-mail info@serena.com.