CAST, a world leader in software analysis and measurement, has come to the rescue of CIOs being asked to squeeze more business value from existing IT systems to free up budget for strategic IT initiatives. Launched today, the latest version of CAST Highlight rapidly and affordably analyzes even the most complex portfolios of enterprise applications to identify areas where CIOs can focus their efforts and achieve the most “bang for their buck.”

CAST’s cloud-based Highlight is a new weapon in the CIO’s armory, using advanced benchmarking to assess software risk, complexity and size across large IT portfolios. Using Highlight, CIOs can more accurately and rapidly prioritize projects and programs, based on tangible data. Previously, strategic IT initiatives were notoriously difficult to rank; a lack of visibility on costs and technical risks, together with competing demands on budget from within IT and other departments, hampered decision-making.

Already deployed by 100 enterprise customers worldwide, CAST Highlight is also ISO 27001-certified, complying with the industry-wide standard on information security management systems.

“As organizations engage in public-facing transformation initiatives, gaining visibility into and measuring the quality, risk and complexity of their application portfolio become more vital than ever,” said IDC analyst Melinda Ballou, program director for IDC’s Application Lifecycle Management and Executive Strategies Service.  “CAST Highlight helps address these issues via the cloud, which can enable quicker implementation, delivering actionable results to improve efficiency and cut costs.”

Key new enhancements include:

  • Benchmarking against peers— Application key risk indicators can be benchmarked against a repository of 650+ anonymized custom enterprise applications, pulled globally from across all Highlight instances.
  • Faster, more in-depth analysis— CAST Highlight’s new agent scans deeper, wider and with more configuration flexibility, making risk profiling and cost saving easier than ever thanks to a “bubble diagram” user interface.
  • Better technical debt estimates — Highlight now delivers more pragmatic, quantifiable technical debt estimates than ever before. As a result, these estimates are more reliable, delivering actionable analytics to make fact-based decisions on which applications are most effective from a cost/benefit perspective.
  • More accurate cost and effort calculations— Using the industry-standard COCOMO model, Highlight provides maintenance effort estimates in terms of Full Time Equivalent (FTE) employees.

”The latest version of CAST Highlight culminates years of focus on the variety of issues facing modern CIOs,” said Michael Muller, Highlight’s product director at CAST. “They are under pressure to deliver greater results from shrinking IT budgets, from stakeholders who consistently demand more.” He noted that as companies are under greater pressure to digitally transform their environment, “This requires a keen eye, a ruthless focus on application rationalization and cost reduction for those who need to operate their businesses more effectively and efficiently.”

Pricing for CAST Highlight starts at $10,000 for a three-month subscription.  More information is available at www.casthighlight.com.