IBM Rational Portfolio Manager 6.2 is the company's project and portfolio management application. "The main goal [of the product] is to align software development projects with business strategy," said Ashok Reddy, program director for Rational Portfolio marketing at IBM.

Rational Portfolio Manager bridges the gap between developers, testers, and businesspersons. "Somebody at the executive level can get a view into the status of projects," Reddy said.

New features include the ability to customize best practices by using templates. IBM Rational Method Composer ships with Version 6.2 for applying best practices and development tools to project plans.

Integration with Rational software development tools, meanwhile, means metrics can be collected from these tools and displayed with Rational Portfolio Manager.

IBM is differentiating itself from other products in a crowded marketplace with functions such as workflow and integration with Rational tools, said Forrester Research analyst Margo Visitacion.