Unicom Focal Point
UNICOM Focal Point is a portfolio management and decision analysis tool used by the product organizations of corporations and government agencies to collect information and feedback from internal and external stakeholders on the value of applications, products, systems, technologies, capabilities, ideas, and other organizational artifacts—prioritize on which ones will provide the most value to the business, and manage the roadmap of how artifacts will be fielded, improved, or removed from the market or organization. UNICOM Focal Point is also used to manage a portfolio of projects, to understand resources used on those projects, and timelines for  completion. The product is also used for pure product management—where product managers use it to gather and analyze enhancement requests from customers to decide on what features to put in a product, and develop roadmaps for future product versions. Overview. UNICOM Focal Point is used for: UNICOM Focal Point is a pure web tool that stores information in an underlying database (user choice of PostgreSQL, Oracle Database, or IBM Db2). Users may input information into the database in multiple ways—via the web interface, through automatic import of spreadsheet files, or through direct Representational State Transfer integration with other  tools. Information is then analyzed with a variety of methods to make prioritization decisions and manage roadmaps of project and product delivery, and scheduling. Focal Point's web-based portal allows end-users from across an organization, and external customers from all over the world, to input information into the database, analyze the information, or view analysis of that information. Focal Point provides a workflow engine so that suggested changes to an organization based on analysis can be signed off. UNICOM Focal Point is used in combination with other tools for corporate analysis and workflow—such as UNICOM System Architect  for enterprise architecture, and Rational Team Concert for DevOps. Integrations to these and a variety of other tools are enabled by UNICOM Focal Point's REST read/write interface and its support for Open Services Lifecycle Collaboration (OSLC) with other OSLC-enabled tools. History. Joachim Karlsson, Ph.D founded Focal Point AB; the tool originated from a doctoral dissertation by Joachim Karlsson at Linköping University, “A Systematic Approach for Prioritizing Software Requirements”. The first version of Focal Point was released in 1997. Focal Point was acquired by Telelogic on April 13, 2005. IBM Rational acquired Telelogic in April 2008., Focal  Point was acquired by UNICOM Global on 1 January 2015. Features. Focal Point includes support for: External links. See also