The company, as part of its strategy, plans to bolster its application lifecycle management (ALM) offerings beginning with a requirements management product to be launched next week to supplement Microsoft's Visual Studio Team System.

While not planning to take over entire software development projects in the manner of an EDS, Borland seeks to counsel customers on issues such as process maturity while also providing tools, according to Erik Frieberg, Borland vice president of product marketing and strategy.

"We're consulting on how you become better at your software development processes," said Frieberg in an interview in San Jose, Calif., on Monday afternoon.

The heydays of the IDE are in the past, Frieberg said.

"The growth for commercial IDEs is clearly over as a stand-alone business, but the development role is extremely important," said Frieberg.