Borland Software Corporation, a global leader for Software Delivery Optimization, today announced details around the future of JBuilder, Borland's award-winning Java integrated development environment. The roadmap includes an increasing investment in Eclipse as JBuilder's underlying integration framework, the introduction of new innovative developer collaboration and productivity capabilities, and a clear path for developers to take advantage of Borland's Software Delivery Optimization vision.
"We are in a new era of development. An era in which developers must focus on enhancing both their individual art and their contribution within a larger team -- a team that often spans organizational roles, geographies and time zones," said Boz Elloy, senior vice president of products at Borland. "Now more than ever, the successful delivery of software depends on teamwork, communication, agility and efficiency. The next generation of Borland's developer-centric solutions will be designed to help individuals and teams manage the pressures of this new era and thrive in it."
Over the next year, Borland is planning to introduce two new JBuilder products that address the evolving needs of enterprise Java developers. The first, JBuilder 2006, is expected to ship later this year. It will be followed in the first half of next year by a new commercial JBuilder product, code-named "Peloton," that will utilize Eclipse as its underlying integration framework. Customers on JBuilder support and maintenance will be entitled to free upgrades to both products.
JBuilder Roadmap: 2006 and Beyond
Since JBuilder's introduction in 1997, Borland has offered enterprise Java developers a way to simplify and harness the latest technologies and Java standards to build better software, faster. The next generation of JBuilder will be designed to continue this tradition, while also addressing the growing challenges of managing distributed teams, larger projects and the expanded role that developers now play in the software delivery cycle.
Borland's JBuilder product line will evolve into a more collaborative developer environment, with capabilities designed to increase both individual and team productivity, and to improve communication across geographic boundaries.
JBuilder has already begun this transition to a more collaborative environment with recent features, such as distributed refactoring, which are offered in JBuilder 2005. Borland's upcoming product, JBuilder 2006, is expected to include additional new collaboration features, such as shared code editor views and joint debugging, enabling developers across the globe to collaborate as if they were sitting at the same workstation.
In future versions of JBuilder, Borland also plans to provide developers with more real-time visibility into the impact of code changes across application tiers as well as projects. This is an important step in enabling developers to make software a more managed and successful business process.
"It's not about simply providing the best editor, debugger or compiler anymore, it's about making developers more successful and valuable to the business," said Rob Cheng, director of developer solutions at Borland. "One of Borland's investments in development teams is making sure JBuilder is even better equipped in the future to serve those working in an increasingly complex, distributed and demanding business environment."
As an organization's IT processes mature, JBuilder will provide a path for customers who want to more fully optimize their software development activities using Borland's process-enabled, role-based Core Software Delivery Platform (SDP). Core SDP and Core::Developer, the developer module within Core SDP, offer a seamlessly integrated ALM solution that helps organizations manage change across roles, capture ALM metrics for analysis and diagnostics, and facilitate knowledge management across business, development and operational teams.
"Peloton": Combining the Best of JBuilder and Eclipse
Borland has also begun development of a new generation of commercial JBuilder products that will utilize Eclipse as the underlying integration framework. "Peloton," the first of these Eclipse-based products, is expected to be available in the first half of 2006.
"Peloton" will bring JBuilder's trademark usability, advanced collaboration features, ALM integrations and enterprise-class support to Eclipse, while still allowing developers to take advantage of all the flexibility of the open Eclipse platform and the growing ecosystem of Eclipse plug-ins. "Peloton," like previous versions of JBuilder, will also support cross-platform development and multi-server deployment.
"Many enterprises are evaluating the Eclipse platform, but the transition is about more than swapping out an IDE," said Bola Rotibi, senior analyst, application lifecycle at Ovum. "The cost of an IDE is miniscule in comparison to a development environment's overall impact on teams, IT systems and business processes. If Borland can create a developer environment that provides the flexibility and cost-efficiencies of using an open platform, in addition to providing the level of quality, innovation, support and investment protection that customers expect from a commercial product, then it is well placed to make the value proposition of Eclipse more attractive to large enterprises."
By utilizing Eclipse as a framework for future ALM and development solutions, Borland will be positioned to better serve both existing customers and the wider Eclipse community. It will allow Borland to focus its talent on building out new, innovative capabilities that provide higher value to developers and development teams, rather than constantly retooling basic IDE functionality that is rapidly becoming commoditized.
Customers on JBuilder support and maintenance, or those renewing their agreements, will be entitled to both JBuilder 2006 and "Peloton" when they are released. For more information about JBuilder support and maintenance, contact http://support.borland.com/. "Peloton" and future Eclipse-based JBuilder products will also include migration tools designed to ensure an easy transition from earlier versions of JBuilder. |
