references to primary sources . please improve this by adding secondary or tertiary sources . august 2009 learn how and when to remove this template message rocket aldon type subsidiary industry computer software founded 1979 headquarters emeryville california parent rocket software website www.aldon.com aldon is a business unit of rocket software . it develops manufactures licenses and supports software change management products for the enterprise application lifecycle management alm and software change management scm markets . 1 2 headquartered in emeryville california u.s. aldon also has offices in canada france the united kingdom australia malaysia singapore and the middle east . the company s current suite of products includes aldon lifecycle manager aldon deployment manager aldon community manager and aldon cmdb . aldon invests more than 25 % of its revenue into research and development . 3 companies use aldon s products for enterprise software application configuration and change management for their it business processes . 1 aldon operates out of 16 offices supporting customers in more than 40 different countries . 1 contents 1 history 1.1 1979 1989 beginnings 1.2 1989 1999 an embrace of ibm s iseries and entry into multi platform development 1.3 2000 present regulatory compliance soa and the move to distributed platforms 2 products 3 see also 4 references 5 external links history edit 1979 1989 beginnings edit aldon was founded in 1979 by albert magid and don parr to provide tools for midrange software developers . 1 the company s products were designed to provide infrastructure around complex software projects . aldon s first product compare a file and database compare tool for the ibm mainframe computer was introduced in 1982 . 4 in 1983 s compare the first source change documentation tool on the market was offered . at that time aldon also sold an object file compare tool called o compare . 4 5 originally developed for the hp 3000 s compare was part of a suite of comparison tools for that environment . designed to enable programmers to identify differences in program code it used advanced algorithms to provide comparisons that were more accurate than other tools could produce . customers used s compare to identify the changes they had made to purchased packages allowing them to integrate those changes into new releases of the packages they had bought . 5 s compare was eventually developed into a comprehensive source compare and merge tool known as aldon harmonizer . the product compared current releases with new releases and then merged the versions to create a whole new set of source and objects . it also supported parallel development by identifying and merging the work of two or more programmers who had modified the same program simultaneously . 5 in the late 1980s harmonizer was converted to run on ibm s system 38 minicomputer platform 6 a precursor to the as 400 later known as iseries application system 400 system i and now ibm i . aldon s decision to convert its product to run on ibm s platform marked aldon s entry into ibm i development . aldon made its home in downtown oakland california for its initial twenty four years of business with the first office located in the financial center building on 14th and franklin streets . aldon relocated to its present headquarters in emeryville on february 18 2003 . 4 1989 1999 an embrace of ibm s iseries and entry into multi platform development edit in 1990 aldon released aldon cms a software change management scm system for traditional iseries development . 4 aldon cms was renamed aldon lifecycle manager iseries edition . in 1996 daniel magid took the helm as ceo of aldon . 7 magid came to aldon from ibm where he had worked in both marketing and sales selling midrange computer systems for the general systems division . 7 in 1997 aldon began the development of the multi platform product aldon affiniti which would allow coders to use process management to handle complex development environments across multiple platforms including unix windows linux mainframe and iseries . 7 aldon affiniti later known as aldon lifecycle manager enterprise edition or lm e was released in 1998 . 7 2000 present regulatory compliance soa and the move to distributed platforms edit regulatory compliance became a much larger concern for businesses after 2004 . in 2004 2005 with the collapse of enron global crossing tyco worldcom and other financial companies governments began to mandate standards such as those in the sarbanes oxley act . while not required for everyone it became evident to companies that complying with the regulations was good business practice . 8 companies began seeking automation to assist with sox compliance . 9 other industries had their own new sets of compliance requirements hipaa healthcare gramm leach bliley financial institutions 21cfr part 11 food and drug administration basel ii banking laws and regulations environmental protection laws and standards and more . 8 in addition tax code changes rfid mandates iso 9001 and iso 14000 sei cmm change control management uccnet compliance and even tracking and reporting on contractual compliance and service level agreements were added to the list . companies were under enormous pressure to comply with these various and complex mandates . 8 the crisis was beneficial to software change management companies who for years had championed the benefits of structured repeatable processes visibility and audit trails for it . scm offered significant benefits to companies implementing best practices to meet compliance requirements . 8 the software could help companies provide what the government was asking of these them . in may 2004 aldon announced new brand names for its product suite as well as the newly shortened company name . 10 the changes were designed to support aldon s objective to penetrate the growing comprehensive enterprise wide multi platform application change management solutions . 5 in february 2005 aldon delivered to market the multiplatform version of aldon lifecycle manager 5.0 which enabled organizations to run their source code repository on any aix or linux server instead of requiring an iseries server . using aldon lifecycle manager 5.0 developers could configure their views to individual work requirements whether they were working with ibm websphere development studio eclipse or microsoft tools that are compliant with its source code control integration scci apis . 11 12 the entry signified additional functionality of the product and moved aldon from its traditional customer base into a distributed systems customer base . at fiscal year end 2005 the company announced 28 percent growth which they attributed to the success of the new product functionality . 13 in 2005 2006 idc noted aldon pushed out well beyond its earlier and ongoing focus for scm in the iseries environment with a multiplatform process centric solution with the launch of aldon lifecycle manager 5.0 which added server side support for linux aix and windows aldon made a concerted effective push beyond its base market . 14 in january 2007 aldon joined microsoft corporation s midrange alliance program . the map was created in 2005 to help iseries users modernize their legacy environments in the following ways extending os 400 applications to windows integrating os 400 and windows applications and ultimately migrating workloads to windows from os 400 . 15 aldon was noted as the first provider of change management software to join the group . 15 in may 2007 aldon added features to its alm offering to further aid parallel development . a graphical interactive compare and merge utility was designed to enable developers working in distributed environments to see what was different between programs . conflict resolution allowed developers to sort and identify version conflicts using status tags such as active pending or cleared improving parallel development . 16 aldon began to see their larger parent corporations implement the product company wide as their change management standard . 17 nintendo of america for example selected aldon lifecycle manager to manage the development of corporate applications across its multi platform enterprise . 17 on may 7 2007 aldon announced the acquisition of the business by marlin equity partners a los angeles california based private investment firm . 18 on march 22 2011 marlin equity partners sold aldon to rocket software inc. products edit aldon s products include aldon lifecycle manager enterprise edition and ibm i edition provides enterprise application configuration and change management . it manages all the parts of an application and its release lifecycles so that all changes move through the appropriate processes before they are promoted to production . 1 aldon community manager is an it service desk that manages change requests requirements and incidents and automates the workflow associated with the software development process . the product enables collaboration in the continuing development and deployment of applications . it also ties it more closely to business goals by bringing in the right decision makers to prioritize change requests as they arise . 19 aldon deployment manager working in conjunction with aldon lifecycle manager aldon deployment manager automates the deployment of all the application parts to the appropriate servers machines or deployment targets throughout the lifecycle . 19 aldon cmdb is a centralized repository of configuration items cis for it service management . aldon cmdb works in tandem with aldon community manager to manage change asset and portfolio items . see also edit list of revision control software comparison of revision control software collaborative development environment application lifecycle management revision control references edit a b c d e andy kellett . the aldon suite technology audit . butler group . april 2007 . reference code ta001225adt . kim wilsher . aldon press kit corporate backgrounder . red lorry yellow lorry . london uk . august 2007 . sarah johansen . aldon update for idc . january 2006 . as presented to idc . a b c d christy white . key events in aldon s history . interview with daniel magid . august 16 2007 . a b c d wayne madden . celebrating 20 years together systemi network . july 1 2002 . http www.systeminetwork.com search f3 index.cfm fuseaction search.searchbykeyword . sarah johansen . aldon corporate fact sheet . may 2006 . a b c d christy white . key events in aldon s history . august 16 2007 . a b c d mary lou roberts . iseries isvs make big investments in regulatory compliance . july 11 2005 . http www.itjungle.com tfh tfh071105 story03.html . the four hundred iseries and as 400 insight . volume 17 number 27 . alex woodie . 2005 a sox auditor s odyssey . http www.itjungle.com fhs fhs012505 story01.html . volume 5 number 4 january 25 2005 . aldon redefines solution suite for enterprise change management with new brand identity . aldon computer group also changes company name to aldon . press release . may 7 2004 . alex woodie . aldon opens up to aix and linux with lifecycle manager 5.0 . http www.itjungle.com tug tug022405 story03.html . volume 2 number 8 february 24 2005 . aldon announces aldon lifecycle manager 5.0 . intelligent enterprise . http www.intelligententerprise.com info centers ent dev showarticle.jhtml articleid 161601133 . april 26 2005 . business wire . aldon year end marks success of multi platform change management market ; company sees strong enterprise growth fortune 100 adoption sox impact it business process demand . http goliath.ecnext.com coms2 summary 0199 4226745 itm may 16 2005 . melinda carol ballou . worldwide software change and configuration management 2005 vendor shares . december 2006 . idc 204821 . a b alex woodie . aldon joins microsoft s midrange alliance program . http www.itjungle.com fhs fhs012307 story07.html . january 23 2007 . four hundred stuff hardware software and services . volume 7 number 3 . alex woodie . aldon tackles parallel development problems with lmi 7.5 . http www.itjungle.com fhs fhs041007 story01.html . april 10 2007 . a b david sims . crm and relationship management software news omniti