Borland details .Net development tools

Several months after announcing plans for a .Net IDE (integrated development environment) to compete with Microsoft's Visual Studio .Net, Borland Software elaborated this week on its intention to offer a complete suite of .Net application development tools.

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Borland, based in Scotts Valley, Calif., also announced the name for its .Net IDE, previously code-named Sidewinder. It is now known as Borland C#Builder, and is on track for a mid-year worldwide release, said Michael Swindell, Borland's director of product development for RAD (rapid application development) tools.

C#Builder is the core of Borland's .Net portfolio, but it will be complemented by several other tools tailored for other phases of the development cycle, comprising a complete application lifecycle management lineup, Swindell said.

Several of those complementary products are already available, such as Borland's Optimizeit Profiler for the Microsoft .NET Framework, a performance tuning tool released in February. Also available now are Borland's .Net-supporting CaliberRM requirements-management software and StarTeam collaboration and change management system. Both products were picked up in Borland's January acquisition of Starbase.

Borland's Together line of design tools is another component of its planned .Net portfolio. A tailored .Net edition of Together will be released around the time C#Builder launches, Swindell said.

Borland plans to offer by the end of 2003 a suite of its .Net tools, including its design, development, collaboration, and optimization products.

Microsoft on Thursday is due to launch its Windows Server 2003 product line. Borland will fully support Windows Server 2003 as the deployment platform for .Net applications, Swindell said. Borland's InterBase embedded database is Windows Server 2003-ready, he said.

Pricing details on C#Builder will be available nearer to the product's launch, according to Borland.