ALM or SDLC

Is ALM replacing SDLC in marketing terms? Someone asked me that the other day and I must admit I don't know the answer. I have seen quite a few press releases recently in which testing tools are placed in the ALM context rather than SDLC.

For example, on August 17th Sys-con had an article about Seapine Software testing tools (here) under the headline Seapine Software Announces TestTrack 2010. The introduction was:

"Seapine Software, a leading provider of global quality-centric application lifecycle management (ALM) solutions, today announced the release of TestTrack 2010. This software suite delivers new features, functionality, and enhancements to the popular TestTrack Pro and TestTrack TCM products, and introduces TestTrack RM, Seapine’s new requirements management solution that manages the complete requirement lifecycle, including planning, workflow, traceability, review, change management, and reporting. All three tools seamlessly integrate with one another to provide end-to-end traceability of requirements, issues, and tests."

ALM got a couple more mentions later on the article but no SDLC was anywhere to be seen.

And on August 19th EWeek carried an article on Thoughtworks tools under the headline ThoughtWorks Brings Agile to Application Lifecycle Management with Adaptive ALM

"ThoughtWorks Studios, a provider of Agile application lifecycle management solutions and software development tools, announces Adaptive ALM, a new Agile solution for enterprise developers building ALM systems.

ThoughtWorks Studios, a provider of Agile application lifecycle management solutions and software development tools, on Aug. 17 announced Adaptive ALM, a new Agile solution for enterprise developers building ALM systems."

A stack of mentions in a few sentences. And there were plenty more in the rest of the article. So on first assessment it looks a like this is the case. But two cases is not conclusive evidence so more examples are needed before a conclusion can be drawn.