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Progress has announced its membership in the Eclipse Foundation and intends to base some of its tools on the Eclipse platform.
Progress Software Corp., of Bedford, Mass., said it will base its tools on Eclipse—an open-source community committed to the implementation of a universal platform for the creation, integration and utilization of software tools.
At the same time, Progress announced that it will base its Progress OpenEdge 10.1 tool set on the Eclipse-based visual development tools.
Gordon Van Huizen, chief technology officer at Progress, said the move to Eclipse reflects Progress commitment to tool independence and complements the companys user interface and platform independence strategies.
“The Eclipse framework provides a rich, extensible and interoperable foundation for our new generation of visual tools,” Van Huizen said.
“When we took a look at potential tools strategies, we came to the conclusion wed like to use a common framework. And when we evaluated them all, we said Eclipse stood head and shoulders above the rest, not only because of the technology in the framework but also because of its tremendous third-party ecosystem.”
Progress already ships some Eclipse-based technology today, Van Huizen said. “Our real-time division is shipping Eclipse tools for O/R [object-relational] mapping,” known as EdgeXtend, he said.
In addition, the next version of the Progress OpenEdge tools will be based on Eclipse, and the company will shed more light on that as the product release date approaches next month, he added.
Progress officials said Eclipse provides a plug-in-based framework that makes it easier to create, integrate and use software tools, saving time and money by leveraging the Eclipse framework and fostering reuse of the vast array of Eclipse-based technology.
Progress also announced that it has introduced a new development environment, OpenEdge Architect, as part of the Progress OpenEdge 10.1 beta program. OpenEdge Architect is based on Eclipse standards and adds capabilities for developing componentized applications built in an SOA (service-oriented architecture).
Progress said about 250 developers—partners and customers—are involved in the beta program. OpenEdge 10.1 includes key new features to improve developer productivity, such as better component services, improved language capabilities and new productivity tools using the Eclipse open-source environment, according to Progress officials.
Paul Knopf, director of product architecture at QAD Inc., of Carpinteria, Calif., said, “QAD uses Progress tools to develop our ERP [enterprise resource planning] application MFG/Pro. They enable our R&D organization to build applications rapidly in an SOA and provide our customers with proven lowest total cost of ownership.
“Eclipse will take the tools to the next level of interoperability and enable us to plug unique components in and have them interoperate well with the tools Progress supplies. The Progress tools themselves have been enhanced in the Eclipse architecture, and we see increased productivity potential.”
What Eclipse brings to Progress
- Open-source, universal platform for building tools
- Use of Eclipse visual tools in Progress OpenEdge 10.1
- Broad ecosystem of plug-ins based on Eclipse
- Increased developer productivity