Application performance management tools vendor Compuware introduced a suite of new products for monitoring the performance of applications, particularly those delivered increasingly to mobile devices. The company also announced that it will be integrating its tools with Google Page Speed, a free, open source tool for improving application speeds, and it would be rebranding its legacy Vantage products as Gomez, referring to a line of tools it gained in the acquisition of Gomez Inc. in the fall of 2009.
The updated Gomez platform includes what Compuware says are new industry-first features, including "real-user monitoring," which enables organizations to understand the actual performance end-users are experiencing when using native mobile applications or accessing websites from mobile devices.
Google Page Speed allows an application developer or manager to test their app by running it in Page Speed and get feedback from Google on how to improve the app to make it run faster. "[Google's] contention is that a faster Internet is better for everybody, consumers and suppliers," said Eric Schurr, senior vice president of marketing at Compuware.
The integration with Google Page Speed is a particularly smart move for Compuware, said Jonah Kowall, research director for IT operations research at Gartner. Integrating Page Speed with Compuware's APM tools is akin to Web sites incorporating Google Maps. "Compuware is the first to provide this feature to the APM market, showing their innovation in this new domain of integrating 3rd party services into enterprise APM offerings," Kowall wrote in an e-mail.
Slow applications discourage people from using apps, particularly mobile Web apps, Schurr said, so the new Gomez platform includes a feature called Real-User Monitoring Performance Conversion Analytics, which analyzes the business impact of slow applications. Buying a product on an e-commerce site is a multi-step process, from shopping to buying to paying to shipping; a bottleneck anywhere can cause people to abandon their shopping carts.
