IBM greenlights Eclipse paid support
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Wants your huddling masses IBM is introducing paid support for users of development tools using Eclipse, while expanding its own products running on the open source framework.â¦
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With an eye toward both consumer and enterprise needs, Sun Microsystems is reworking the plug-in architecture of Java in an upcoming update to Java Platform Standard Edition (SE) 6, company officials said Wednesday evening.Overall, Sun officials at a briefing in San Francisco stressed the company's new emphasis on not just the enterprise space but consumer systems as well, with the company extending Java and rich experiences to various devices.With the plug-in platform, a ground-up rewrite is under way, said Ken Russell, from the Java SE deployment team. "This will change how your poker game in [a] Web browser is run as well as your corporate app," Russell said.The new architecture is planned for inclusion in the upcoming beta of what is now being referred to as Java SE 6 Update N, due in December."Really, the defining feature of it is that it runs the applets in a separate process than the Web browser," Russell said.Features of the plug-in plan include improved scripting support and reliability. More powerful applications can be supported than in the past. Users will be able to tune an applet to run in a particular version of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE); this will enable developers to target one JRE without having to change the behavior of any other applet. Testing also will be simplified.In addition, better backing will be offered for Windows Vista, including capabilities for signed applets. Support will be offered for Internet Explorer 6 and 7 browsers as well as for Firefox 3 alpha builds and the Firefox 2 browser. Platforms capable of running the plug-in include Solaris, Windows and Linux.Current plans call for the plug-in technology to be turned on via a switch in the Java control panel.Sun also delved into other features planned for Java SE 6 Update N."Update N is about fixing the consumer experience," with a more solid browser plug-in experience and a better installation experience, said Chet Haase, Java SE client architect. Sun also wants to better enable Java for rich Internet applications.A faster startup for Java is also planned. This is important in the Web ad and lightweight game space, Haase said. Also planned is inclusion of technology from a project called Quickstarter, which preloads disk cache to bolster performance of lightweight applications. Faster graphics is planned as well, as is Nimbus, which provides a new look and feel for Java Swing client systems.Haase also noted Sun's plan for the Java Kernel, which enables downloading just the parts of Java that are needed to run an application. While that application is running, the rest of the platform is downloaded.James Gosling, chief technology officer for the Sun client software group, reviewed plans for JavaFX, which is Sun's platform for building rich, consistent user experiences for a wide variety of devices and systems."JavaFX really is a marketing term that is sort of an umbrella for a set of activities," Gosling said. The platform covers consumer-facing technologies and features a services layer based on Java and a database, a presentation layer with HTTPD, and an edge device component, covering desktops to phones to TVs."This edge part of the universe -- this is what JavaFX is all about," said Gosling.Featured in JavaFX is JavaFX Mobile, which is a software stack for mobile phones; Java SE 6 Update N, also known as the consumer JRE; the JavaFX Script scripting language, and JavaFX designer and developer tools."[JavaFX Script is] a scripting language sort of in the sense of PHP [Hypertext Preprocessor] and Python and all the rest of them. But while those are focused at generating HTML from the presentation layer outward, JavaFX Script is really all about rich user interactions," Gosling said.
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Hoping to both bolster resources available to its network of business partners as well as expand its number of partners, IBM on Tuesday introduced services and support programs that boost financial support for co-marketing campaigns and grant deeper access to IBMâs sales network to close deals faster.
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Sun said Thursday that it had released Java Enterprise System 5.0, a set of subscription-based services that complement enterprise operating systems like the company's own Solaris 10.
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(InfoWorld) - IBM Rational on Thursday is announcing plans to provide technical support for the Eclipse open source tools platform, thus giving customers a single point of contact for both open source and IBM's commercial technologies for software development. IBM will also unveil plans for upcoming tools geared to the new Eclipse 3.2 platform, and it is rolling out online developer resources for Eclipse users. IBM is making the announcements at the EclipseWorld conference in Cambridge, Mass. Through its IBM Rational Elite Support for Eclipse program, IBM will for the first time provide support for raw Eclipse tooling, said Scott Hebner, vice president of marketing and strategy at IBM Rational. Tools also will be provided. IBM previously supported IBM Rational products that are based on Eclipse but not for Eclipse tools themselves. Users will be assisted with issues such as solving defects and getting questions answered. IBM Rational, rather than the IBM Global Services group will provide support. "This is an opportunity for the IT managers and development managers to provide a unified support structure," Hebner said. Eclipse users not working with IBM Rational products also can sign up for the Eclipse support. IBM officials noted users are doing mission-critical work and want more accountability for support rather than just relying on the community at large. "They're happy with the level of tooling [from Eclipse]. They're not happy with building [solutions] alone," said Gary Cernosek, offerings manager for analysis, design and construction at IBM Rational. Eclipse 3.2 features Java 5 support, refactoring and a preview of support for the Windows Vista OS. Version 3.2 debuted in July. IBM also will support some Eclipse projects, such as the Web Tools Platform, Test and Performance Tools Platform, and the Eclipse Modeling Framework. With its support effort, IBM is addressing the downside that enterprises face when opting to develop with free, open source tools. according to analyst Bola Rotibi, of Ovum. "The problem many customers have or many enterprises have is not so much from that point of view [of using open source tools], it's when things go wrong," Rotibi said. "IBM is basically saying, well, OK, we understand this issue and [you need] a unified support approach or a unified support framework," Rotibi said. The support program costs $400 per developer for a one-year subscription for unlimited calling. Support will be available in the fourth quarter of this year. IBM at the show also is announcing a preregistration effort for participating in beta programs for three upcoming products based on Eclipse 3.2. These products are Lotus Designer 6, which is a rapid application development tool to build components to run WebSphere Portal 6.0; IBM Rational Software Architect Release 7, for UML (Unified Modeling Language) modeling, and IBM Rational Functional Tester 7, for automated testing. Tools improve the ability to visually construct services for SOA. Enhanced support for geographically distributed development also is a highlight. Rational Software Architect also features modeling for code reconciliation and Functional Tester can be used to test services, business processes and SAP applications. IBM's new tools ship by the end of the year. New resources on IBM's developerWorks site are in the Eclipse and Rational skill zones. These resources help developers build skills in Eclipse 3.2 and include a course on building "cheat sheets" Eclipse 3.2, for performing complex Eclipse tasks. Education, tutorials and resources are featured for Eclipse 3.2.
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IBM Corp. is enhancing its software developer&#39;s support program by creating a software code exchange.
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After years of holding out, IBM Corp. Monday has joined the OpenOffice.org open-source community and will contribute code to the office suite that serves as an alternative to Microsoft Corp.&#39;s Office software.
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Enhancements to Eclipse-based integrated development environment are designed to bring traditional source code and testing tools to hosted Force.com platform.
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(InfoWorld) - Cambridge, Mass. -- IBM and other parties are set to propose an open source systems management initiative for consideration by the Eclipse Foundation, with managing SOA a goal of the plan, an IBM official said at the EclipseWorld 2006 conference on Friday. Tentatively referred to as COSMOS (Community-driven Systems Management in Open Source), the effort is to be proposed as an Eclipse top-level project centered on systems management tools.Â  "Itâs really going to be focusing on the tooling aspect of [systems management], how you go off and instrument and tool your apps," said Mark Weitzel, senior software engineer at IBM. Resource modeling also is part of COSMOS, he added. Enabling management of SOA and other environments is an intention of COSMOS, Weitzel said. He did not have a specific date on when COSMOS would officially be proposed to Eclipse. Principal focuses of COSMOS include: data collection and a server component, monitoring of the user interface, resource modeling and deployment. Resource instrumentation also is a critical component, with industry specifications including WSDM (Web Services Distributed Management), JMX (Java Management Extensions) and the Open Group's ARM (Application Resource Measuremen) standard all factored into COSMOS. Other projects also may play a role in COSMOS, such as the Eclipse Corona application lifecycle management project and the Eclipse Test & Performance Tools Platform. Also at EclipseWorld this week, AccuRev announced additions to its AccuBridge for Eclipse plug-in, which enables developers using the Eclipse IDE to access AccuRev software configuration management functionality. New features include a project wizard to browse Eclipse project source code, the use of a native Eclipse diff tool to compare code, and the capability to use AccuRev advanced inheritance merging capabilities from within the Eclipse Team menu. Additional usability enhancements are featured, including a synchronization workspace view, project-level status indicator icons, and diff functionality exposed through the Eclipse "compare with" menu. LogicBlaze this week announced availability of its LogicBlaze Fuse Development Environment, based on the Eclipse Web Tools Platform. The environment provides a GUI to design integration projects leveraging standard Java Business Integration (JBI) components. Fuse is LogicBlaze's open source SOA platform. Key features of the environment include a configuration and deployment control, including an Apache Maven-based object model to manage configuration of integration components; automatic code generation through Maven and full Eclipse debugging. Maven is an open source project management and software build tool. BPEL (Business Process Execution Language for Web services) orchestration also is supported, via implementation of the Apache Ode engine. LogicBlaze offers its software as part of support subscriptions, with developer support services costing $6,000 per quarter and production support priced at $10,000 per server annually.
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(InfoWorld) - The Eclipse Foundation at the EclipseWorld 2006 conference in Cambridge, Mass., this week plans to tout the progress of open source projects focused on desktop application development, PHP (Hypertext Processor) and embedded Java. Honing in on a recent Evans Data survey that Eclipse and several member organizations funded, Eclipse will herald an annual growth rate of 130 percent in the number of respondents building applications based on Eclipse RCP (Rich Client Platform). The RCP is Eclipse's answer to the Windows juggernaut for development of desktop applications. Approximately 22 percent of the 400 respondents in this year's survey indicated they were building applications based on RCP. RCP features Equinox, which is a component framework based on the OSGi standard, and the ability to deploy native GUI applications to several desktop operating systems including Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. Also featured is an integrated update mechanism for deploying desktop applications from a central server. Although development of applications for the Web has been taking the headlines lately, rich client applications still have a place, said Mike Milinkovich, Eclipse executive director. There will always be a need for applications on the desktop that take advantage of local computing resources and can work in both disconnected and connected fashions. While RCP can be used for building Windows applications, Eclipse views it as a competitor to the Windows platform. "[RCP] has the additional advantage that you can take applications and run on Linux, Mac, and Windows, but we definitely see this as an alternative to Windows .Net," Milinkovich said. Organizations such as SAS Institute, NASA, and the US Army feature RCP in applications, he said. Eclipse also has a new project just getting started for rich Internet applications, called the Rich AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) Platform project Also at the show, Eclipse plans to talk about upcoming developments such as the impending release of its PHP IDE project. "We are expecting our PHP tools project to be making [its] first release in Q4," Milinkovich said. "In Q4, we're expecting our Mobile Tools for Java project to be shipping and our embedded RCP project will be shipping as well," Milinkovich said. Mobile Tools for Java features a set of development tools for programmers building applications for mobile devices running Java. Embedded RCP is a runtime to extend the RCP to embedded devices. In the next few months, Eclipse plans maintenance releases to fix any bugs in its Callisto project, which was launched in June and featured the simultaneous release of 10 open source projects. The first maintenance release is on Sept. 29 while a second is planned for approximately Feb. 1, 2007. Also at EclipseWorld, Instantiations is announcing Version 2.0 of RCP Developer, which is a development tool for building Eclipse RCP applications. The new version adds a Help Composer feature, to ease documentation, and extends Linux support for the RCP Packager and WindowTester features. WindowTester feature automates testing of GUIs for Linux while RCP Packager streamlines the build and deployment process. Version 2.0 is centered on making it easier to focus on developing business logic rather than maintaining infrastructure code. Eclipse on Sept. 11, meanwhile, plans to have a creation review for the Eclipse Orbit Project. The project will provide a repository of bundled versions of third-party libraries that are approved for use in one or more Eclipse projects, according to the Eclipse Web site. Older versions of such libraries will be maintained by the repository as well. "One of the key issues with the current situation is the inconsistency in naming, versioning, and form of bundled third party libraries. This project will, as a mainline activity, provide a repository of approved and bundled third party libraries to authorized project teams. This eliminates duplicated work and bundle naming, structuring and versioning variations," the Eclipse site said. Also on Sept. 11, Eclipse will be reviewing its AspectJ Development Tools Project for aspect-oriented software development (AOSD), according to the organization's Web site. "The AspectJ Development Tools (AJDT) project provides Eclipse platform-based tool support for AOSD with AspectJ," the Eclipse site said.
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InfoWorld - Hoping to speed acceptance of its service-oriented architecture initiative, IBM at last has rolled out a new service to help corporate users shape their projects to better fit their business goals.
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New graphical report designer plug-in gives Eclipse developers direct access to world's most widely-used open source BI reporting product  SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 20, 2006 Ã¢â¬â JasperSoft Corporation, the market leader in open source business intelligence, today launched iReport Plug-in for Eclipse, a graphical report designer that lets developers using Eclipse quickly add sophisticated reports to their applications. JasperSoft's new Eclipse plug-in, as well as the iReport designer application and the JasperReports reporting libraries are all freely available for download and use under open source licenses. This is the first integration of Eclipse with JasperSoft's open source BI products, which have been downloaded more than 1.7 million times.  Eclipse users can now create, edit, and run reports from the same familiar development environment they use everyday, speeding up their workflow and reducing project development times. Java developers can instantly access the iReport graphical report editor to give their applications rich reporting capability based on the popular and powerful JasperReports library that can create Web and pixel-perfect ready to print reports in PDF, HTML, XLS, CSV, TXT and XML. In addition to easy report creation, the new iReport Plug-in for Eclipse also gives developers access to the entire JasperIntelligence suite of open source BI applications to manage interactive reports from a server, schedule reports, and analyze data.  Ã¢â¬ÅWe want to thank JasperSoft and their peers in the open source community who worked on the new iReport Plug-in for Eclipse that gives developers the ability to add advanced reporting capability to their applications,Ã¢â¬Â said Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation. Ã¢â¬ÅCreating a bridge between the Eclipse and JasperSoft open source communities further strengthens both communities and brings more value to users of open source applications.Ã¢â¬Â  Ã¢â¬ÅJasperSoft developed the iReport Plug-in for Eclipse in response to demand from Java developers to get direct access to the world's most popular open source reporting library with the most popular open source IDE platform,Ã¢â¬Â said Giulio Toffoli, lead committer for the iReport project and iReport engineering lead at JasperSoft. Ã¢â¬ÅNow Java developers can choose the best reporting tools for their projects, without concern about IDE compatibility.Ã¢â¬Â    The new product is shipping with all copies of iReport and is immediately available for download and installation from http://www.jasperforge.org as part of the iReport package. iReport and the new Eclipse plug-in are distributed under the GPL open source license.  ###
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InfoWorld - Sun plans to announce on Monday that it will provide support for the OpenOffice.org productivity software suite, citing a wave of momentum behind the open-source project.
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Eclipse Trader is a set of plugins for the Eclipse RCP (Rich Client Platform) dedicated to the building of an online stock trading system. This release add a context menu for customizing the history charts and two additional technical indicators.  To facilitate the installation process, we have also made available bundled packages for win32, linux and macosx systems.  Download from: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=116488&package_id=132930
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(InfoWorld) - Dynamic scripting languages, a popular choice for Web application development, will be a top priority for the Eclipse Foundation at the EclipseCon conference, which begins Monday in Santa Clara, Calif. The open source tools organization will update two projects pertaining to AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), and it will revise the DLTK (Dynamic Languages Toolkit), which features frameworks and platforms to make it easier to use scripting languages such as Tcl (Tool Command Language), Python, and Ruby. Eclipse's ATF (AJAX Toolkit Framework), with features for editing, compiling, and debugging AJAX applications, is being fitted with support for the script.aculo.us AJAX framework, Mike Milinkovich, Eclipse executive director, said. This will be done with release 0.2 of ATF at the conference. ATF already supports the Dojo, Open Rico, and Zimbra AJAX frameworks. These frameworks enable interactivity in the browser. "The challenge to date around tooling for AJAX has been dealing with these different frameworks," Milinkovich said. Eclipse with ATF can help consolidate the high volume of AJAX frameworks, which has impeded enterprise support for AJAX because of fragmentation, said Jeffrey Hammond, senior analyst at Forrester Research. "There's 130 frameworks out there. What we need is 10 or less," Hammond said. While ATF enables the building of tools to interact with AJAX frameworks, it also features tools of its own, such as those for profiling and debugging. Currently, ATF supports the Firefox browser only, but there are plans to enable it to work with other browsers, including Internet Explorer. Also, Eclipse will debut release 0.1 of RAP (Rich AJAX Platform), which provides a runtime for AJAX applications. Developers can build applications in Java, then decide whether to deploy them in the browser via RAP or on the client. A 1.0 release of RAP is planned for June. "You write your Java [code] once and then you can make your deployment decision later, based on what the customer or what your client wants to do," Hammond said. With the 0.7 release of DLTK, Eclipse will support Tcl. Version 1.0 of DLTK, due in June, will back Ruby and Python. DLTK provides facilities to build IDEs for scripting languages. Eclipse, with its open source tools, enables commercial companies to develop commercial products that leverage base Eclipse technologies.Â
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New name, old support model Red Hat hopes to stand out from other vendors offering Eclipse-based Java tools by not discriminating between "free" and "useful" when it comes to features in its JBoss Developer Studio, released this week.â¦
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IBM, Sun Microsystems, and Computer Associates have jumped aboard in support of the WS-Eventing specification for subscribing to Web services-based events, joining original developers Microsoft, BEA Systems, and Tibco Software.