INDUSTRY

Sun Microsystems, the creator of Java technology, the Solaris Operating System and the world's leading contributor of open source code, today announced new third party support and contributions to the NetBeans 5.5 Integrated Development Environment (IDE). This includes the general availability of the NetBeans Mobility Pack for Connected Device Configuration (CDC) 5.5, which features significant code contributions from Ricoh Corporation. In addition, collaborative software development specialist Intland Software has joined the NetBeans Strategic Partner Program and created a new plug-in for its CodeBeamer technology for the NetBeans 5.5 IDE, which is already being used by the United States Department of Agriculture. "Community and third-party involvement is a testament to the strength and adoption of the NetBeans platform. We are thrilled to be working with organizations such as Ricoh and Intland to extend the NetBeans open source development environment," said Jeet Kaul, vice president, Java Developer Platforms Group, Sun Microsystems. "Having these companies align with the NetBeans community, build plug-ins for the IDE and contribute code to NetBeans software projects has exponential benefits for all developers using NetBeans software-based tool solutions." The NetBeans Mobility Pack for CDC 5.5 enables visual design and development of Java Platform Micro Edition (Java ME) applications for devices using CDC. CDC provides a powerful embedded Java technology solution for a variety of devices, from smartphones and set-top boxes to multi-function peripherals. Ricoh has been an important and active contributor to the NetBeans Mobility project and is recommending the NetBeans solution to their developer community. The NetBeans Mobility Pack for CDC 5.5 will be available for free download next week at: its Web site. "The NetBeans IDE has given our Ricoh Developer Program members a powerful tool for leveraging the Java ME platform to create market-making document management solutions," said Mark Minshull, vice president of Solutions Engineering of Ricoh Corporation. "The open-source NetBeans software project gives us the opportunity to ensure that integrated development tools supporting our devices are readily available and give Ricoh developers the resources they require." Intland Software's CodeBeamer is a Java technology-based collaborative software development platform. As part of its participation in the NetBeans Strategic Partner Program, Intland has developed a CodeBeamer plug-in for the NetBeans IDE. The CodeBeamer plug-in is open source, GPL-licensed, and a 15-user version is available now for free download at its Web site . "Intland is providing a fully integrated plug-in for the NetBeans IDE, providing complete application life cycle management capabilities including enterprise wiki, trackers for bugs, task, changes and requirements as well as project management," said Janos Koppany, CEO, Intland Software. "The CodeBeamer plug-in, helps to integrate NetBeans software developers into teams and teams into enterprises in order to collaborate, share knowledge, and develop software projects effectively from diverse locations and geographies. Together, CodeBeamer and NetBeans software provide an integrated solution, complete with developer tools, for both document and source code management." The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)/Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is using the CodeBeamer collaboration system and its NetBeans IDE plug-in, along with the open source Subversion version management system to expedite software development across the USDA organization, which requires the participation of over 675 users and 200 projects across diverse geographical locations. "At USDA/NRCS we are standardizing our modeling efforts for projects, such as a water supply forecasting project in the U.S., using a NetBeans IDE-based Modeling Platform (Object Modeling System)," said Olaf David, Research Computer Scientist at USDA/NRCS. "We chose the NetBeans IDE, CodeBeamer, and Subversion because together they provide the only fully integrated collaboration solution that effectively facilitates our development and deployment of simulation models." For a full list of NetBeans Strategic Partners and information about joining the program, visit: its Web site