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CollabNet recently announced the launch of CollabNet OnDemand, a hosted solution of distributed development tools. This release means that the power of an enterprise-class integrated suite of development tools is now available to teams of all sizes.

If you've never heard of CollabNet, here's the background: The company's roots come from the land of open source as the company was founded in 1999 by Tim O'Reilly and Brian Behlendorf, gurus with ties to the early days of the open source movement. When it released Subversion in 2000 it was the result of applying open source principles to the arena of software development. Subversion is the software code control piece of the puzzle and has over 2 million current users.

CollabNet's distributed software development platform integrates tools for version control, requirement, issue, and other things in a collaborative development environment. With 1.3 million users, it is one of the leading platforms for geographically distributed software development organizations.

Many traditional source-code-control configuration management tools are installed applications, geared toward development teams who work within the same company. They were initially designed to handle non-web-based software development projects, and many teams have simply adapted them for use within a web-based-development environment the best they could. CollabNet Subversion was designed specifically with the web-development environment and global, distributed-team model in mind.

CollabNet Enterprise Subversion took things further, adding in a full suite of distributed development technologies to the mix including issue tracking, file release, project management, reporting, and collaboration tools. Role-based access control allows different team members to have varying levels of permissions across a project.

Now virtual teams could work as effectively as a local group in a conference room because all the basics of distributed development could be managed centrally through the web. Because the suite itself is web based, it is specifically designed for the way web architecture and development software projects work. Teams could be in synch over various time zones and large distances. Leveraging the power of collaboration technologies like wikis, project information and knowledge that would normally be inaccessible while one half of the globe is asleep is now available to teammates during their peak productive hours.

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According to Rob Cheng, director of product marketing at CollabNet, "OnDemand allows small startup teams to get all the advantages of an enterprise solution. The features are identical and only the service level agreement (SLA) and degree of support varies. Larger teams of 50-60 users and up will still benefit more from using the full enterprise product either hosted or onsite."

OnDemand is basically a hosted version of the SourceForge Enterprise suite. What it means though is that even small startup teams of a few folks scattered geographically can benefit from the power of a full arsenal of development and collaboration tools usually only available to larger teams with big budgets.

"OnDemand is great for a telecommuting workforce," Cheng added.

I can personally speak to the perils of attempting to use some traditional configuration management tools remotely. It would be quicker to watch paint dry.

Last year CollabNet acquired SourceForge and they are in the process of combining both platforms. You can see how all the products tie together on this product overview page. The best of both these worlds will now be available to teams of all sizes via either OnDemand or the Enterprise edition of the tool.

For more, check out the details on CollabNet OnDemand on the company's web site. Pricing is $50 per user month with annual subscription for the first project. Additional projects are $100.

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