Enterprise Development: Integration At Forefront of Tools Competition

There have been a number of changes in the enterprise development tools area since last year. Indeed, the very title of the product category has changed from Java tools to reflect that most vendors now bundle their tools with Web application servers or enterprise application suites.

Not surprisingly, Symantec, the winner last year in the Java tools category, sold its Visual Cafe to WebGain, a start-up provider of Java development tools, and SunSoft withdrew its Java Workshop applications development tool kit from the market.

New products in this category extend to the Linux OS, which has become a popular environment for developers. And existing vendors are combining tools with business intelligence products to strengthen their products' e-commerce capabilities.

IBM's Visual Age 3.5, for example, released at the end of August, is an integral part of WebSphere Studio and is tightly integrated with the WebSphere Application Server and the WebSphere Studio tools.

"Visual Age is totally focused on supporting lifecycle development for WebSphere," says Valerie Olague, director of product marketing for WebSphere. "Visual Age Enterprise Edition focuses on providing best-of-breed Java IDEs for the skilled object-oriented programmer," Olague says. "It's tailored to business-analyst skills using business rules with Enterprise Java Beans (EJB) or Java running in WebSphere." Developers also have the advantage of testing the deployment of EJB inside the development environment with WebSphere, she adds.

IBM's objectives, according to Olague, include rapid development, tight integration with the run-time environment, and a broad partnership strategy. IBM, based in Armonk, N.Y., provides specific interfaces with partner applications, such as Rational Software's ClearQuest.

The tools are delivered on multiple platforms, including NT, Windows 2000 and Linux. And, from IBM's standpoint, Linux seems to be attracting attention. "There is much growth and huge partner interest in Linux," Olague says.

IBM wants to be taken seriously as a company that values developers, Olague explains. "We're trying to recruit 5 million developers for the WebSphere platform," she says. "People are looking to IBM as a company that understands developers. We did not see that two years ago."

Keeping It Simple

Redwood Shores, Calif.-based Oracle also includes its development tools within a product suite. Internet Developer Suite contains application-development tools and business-intelligence tools, as well as enterprise portal-building tools. The goal was to simplify the product line and lower the prices because developers were buying the tools individually, according to John Magee, Oracle's director of Internet platform marketing.

JDeveloper is a Java integrated development environment (IDE) that is tightly integrated with the Internet platform, featuring drag-and-drop deployment and remote debugging, Magee says. It is combined with Business Components, a set of tools for building logic in Java.

JDeveloper 3.1, a development tool, was released in June. Version 3.2 is expected to be released this month. The framework provides design-time facilities and run-time services to simplify the tasks of building, debugging and customizing, Magee explains.

"Business logic code can be created, and you can choose how you want to deploy it after the fact," Magee explains. "Every business component is a combination of Java and XML. You can use XML in a standard editor to change the definition of a component without having to go back into the Java environment and recompile the code. The 3.2 version of JDeveloper will have even more XML support."

Like IBM, Oracle is seeing increased development activity around Linux, Magee says. "There is huge interest in Linux from the developer community," he explains. "In our Oracle Technology Network, we make all our software available for free, and Linux is very popular."

Meeting Specifications

Allaire, the winner of this year's competition, is still a relatively new player. The Cambridge, Mass.-based company emerged in the enterprise tools category last June with the introduction of JRun 3.0. This first release from Allaire updates a version of a JavaServer Pages (JSP) server engine the company acquired from Live Software in June 1999. Allaire combined it with an EJB server acquired from Valto Systems. The application server was built to meet Java2 Enterprise Edition specifications.

JRun 3.0 also includes an integrated transaction server and messaging server. The product supports the latest JSP specifications and includes advanced features such as custom tags and JSP precompilation. In addition, JRun 3.0 includes a JSP custom tag library, making common activities such as connecting to databases and sending e-mail significantly easier.

The EJB component, which adds the capability to connect to legacy systems and program business logic, makes the product an enterprise-class development tool, according to Dan Murphy, JRun product marketing manager.

ColdFusion, another of Allaire's popular Web application servers, is for developing and delivering scalable e-business applications. Company officials say the next version will integrate the current JRun and ColdFusion offerings into a single, Java-based application server that will be fully backward-compatible with ColdFusion and JRun applications.

In contrast to the multiplatform approach favored by some vendors, Microsoft's Visual Studio 6.0 operates only in the Windows environment. A 2-year-old product, Visual Studio 6.0 will eventually be replaced by Visual Studio.net, which is expected to be released in beta shortly.

Dan Hay, Visual Studio product manager, says the dot-net framework will extract open Internet standards and Windows APIs to make it easier for developers to build distributed applications.

Visual Studio.net sits on top of the dot-net framework and provides productivity features such as graphic designers and WYSIWYG editors. It will utilize a Web forms paradigm with a drag-and-drop feature. One integrated IDE will make it easier for developers to switch between languages, according to Hay.

Development Tools

Hay sees a trend of components-based development, which allows for reusable code for common tools. Microsoft will introduce a Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) toolkit to bridge between Studio 6.0 and Visual Studio.net.

JBuilder 4, Borland/Inprise's product entrant, features visual two-way tools, wizards and an integrated remote debugger. It also includes JDataStore 4, a pure Java Object RDMS for Web, mobile and embedded applications. Enterprise mobile computing is the target market.

"We're looking at wireless, handheld devices as an end point to the enterprise," says Tony de la Lama, vice president and general manager of the Java business unit.

Released last month, the product is designed to shorten development time by emphasizing teamwork and version control to accommodate developers working at different sites, according to J%FCrgen Fesslmeier, product manager.

"In Version 4, you can develop an e-commerce application from the front to the back end," he explains. "We support HTML browsers and the wireless application protocol." The product also supports BEA's WebLogic application server and will support IBM's WebSphere in the future. Banks, telecommunications and health care are three verticals the company targets, Fesslmeier says.

Sybase is yet another vendor that is taking the integrated approach to enterprise development tools. The Emeryville, Calif.-based company's Enterprise Application (EA) Studio includes Enterprise Application Server 3.5, PowerBuilder 7.0 and PowerJ 3.5. PowerJ is the Web development tool for Sybase EAServer.

PowerJ and the latest version of EAServer 3.6 are bundled into Enterprise Application Studio. Both the development tool and the new EAServer are key elements of Sybase's new portal strategy, according to Al McGuire, director of product marketing for Sybase's Internet application division.