Larsen said his company, which provides Ethernet products to telecommunications carriers, now uses incompatible requirements management, scheduling, defect-tracking, compiler and software configuration management tools.

The Eclipse Foundation plans to roll out proof-of-concept code for ALM at the conference, said Ian Skerrett, the organization's director of marketing.

More than 30 vendors have signed on to support the project, which was launched by Eclipse member Serena Software Inc. last spring. The completed ALM code is expected to be available in October, Skerrett said.

The right fit

Tim Farmer, manager of the software architect team at Choice Homes Inc. in Arlington, Texas, plans to look at Eclipse ALM as a potential response to demands that his development group account for the time and resources it spends on specific projects.