IBM Web Site Allows Developers Access To Software Code, Demos

Unveiled at IBM's developerWorks Live 2002 show here last month, the new resources are aimed at helping solution providers that support Linux applications, said Gina Poole, vice president of developer marketing and Web communities for IBM developer relations.

Speed-Start Your Linux App offers ISVs and developers a free CD with Linux deployment versions of several IBM packages, including Web Services Toolkit, WebSphere Studio, WebSphere Application Server, DB2 and Lotus Domino, said Poole. Through the company's developerWorks site, solution providers also have access to a step-by-step demonstration of how to use the various software, she said.

IBM is also offering new Web services demos on its Web Services Zone, also at the developerWorks site, said Poole. To help developers build their own solutions, IBM is offering free of charge a collection of Web services that were built using IBM products.

"The key words here are, 'Steal our code,' " said Poole. "We want developers to take our code and do what they want with it."

In addition, IBM is offering resources for the new version of its J2EE application server, WebSphere Application Server 5.0, which was launched at the show, said Poole.

One new feature of WebSphere 5.0 is a private UDDI registry that developers can use to publish as Web services applications built on the platform, said John Swainson, IBM's general manager of applications and integration middleware.

The product also includes J2EE extensions for creating business-process flows in Enterprise JavaBeans that save developers time and eliminate the need for a process-manager extension, he said.

What's more, WebSphere Application Server 5.0 will be the foundation on which IBM builds new versions of its MQ Series and CrossWorlds products, said Swainson.

Brad Murphy, senior vice president of strategic business development at Dallas-based Valtech Technologies, said this type of WebSphere product integration will help clarify for solution providers how to use IBM's software products together in solutions.

"IBM has so many different products now under the WebSphere brand that customers have had a challenging time figuring out what they need and what they've got," said Murphy. "WebSphere version 5.0 fixes that."

Also new on the developerWorks site are two new domains: the Lotus Developer Domain for Lotus developers and the Tivoli Developer Domain for Tivoli developers, said Poole. Lotus is IBM's collection of collaboration applications, and Tivoli is its software line for network management.

The addition of the Lotus and Tivoli sites gives developers a single portal for application-development resources tied to all IBM software platforms, said Poole. "Our entire software portfolio,the complete family,is out there on developerWorks," she said.