Borland Software Corp. sees Java as the future of application development, and on Monday the Scotts Valley, Calif., company rolled out a new platform based on Java 2 Enterprise Edition that includes current technology and new offerings.
Borland executives said the Borland J2EE Enterprise Edition will both meet current needs and also fuel future adoption of Java in the enterprise, including the migration from the popular Java servlet/JSP technology to the more robust Enterprise Java Beans.
“The platform will drive Java technology into the mainstream for enterprises of all levels,” said Ken Jochims, senior product manager of enterprise for Borland.
According to the company, 90 percent of Java application deployment in 2000 was done using servlets. However, that number is expected to drop to 60 percent by 2003, with use of EJB increasing to 40 percent.
The new platform, which will be available later this quarter, comprises the Borland Enterprise Studio for Java; the Borland JBuilder 6 in Enterprise, Professional and Personal editions; and the Borland Enterprise Server in Web, VisiBroker and AppServer editions.
Key to this strategy is giving businesses different entry points into Java technology, with low-, mid- and high-level application products, officials said.
Another example of this is in the AppServer Edition of the Borland Enterprise Server, a J2EE 1.3-compliant application server that includes partitioning technology. Partitioning enables businesses to run applications independently and to run hundreds of applications on a single server, allowing companies to scale the applications as needed, Borland officials said. The AppServer and VisiBroker editions are both aimed at large-scale, EJB-based applications.
On the other hand, the new entry-level Web edition features a low price—$399 per server—aimed at businesses deploying applications using Java servlets or JSP.
And each edition can be used as the building block for the next higher edition, said Axel Kratel, senior product manager for Java at Borland.
The latest edition of JBuilder includes greater support for development and deployment of EJB-based applications, including the use of UML code visualization that helps novice EJB developers by enabling them to leverage existing source codes.
It also will support Web services with the upcoming release of the Borland Web Services Toolkit for Java. Furthermore, the platform also includes Web services deployment on JBuilder, Borland Delphi and Borland Kylix applications.