Sun is upgrading enterprise development tool suite

Sun Microsystems on Tuesday unveiled Version 7 of the company’s enterprise development tool suite, Sun Java Studio Enterprise, and previewed a JVM that will support 64-bit AMD Opteron processors.

The announcements served as a prelude to next week’s unveiling of the Solaris 10 operating system. Java Studio Enterprise features a development environment to speed building of applications with a collection of interfaces that target the runtime version of the Java Enterprise System platform.

A key new feature in Version 7 is “Code-Aware Collaboration,” in which distributed teams or workgroups can interact and work together. Instant messaging is deployed to enable secure connections between developers, who can transfer information and artifacts amongst each other, according to Sun.

“This is probably the most distinctive feature of the release and really does allow developers to establish chat sessions while looking at the code,” said Joe Keller, vice president of marketing for Java Web services and Development platforms at Sun, during a teleconference.

Also featured in Version 7 is support for the Unified Modeling Language (UML), for model-driven analysis. The release also adds an Application Profiler, for analyzing application performance.

Officials at Javalobby, an organization of Java developers, had mixed views on Sun’s tools announcement.

“It looks like they’re making a big deal about this collaboration feature but they don’t go into a whole lot of detail about what exactly it is,” said Matthew Schmidt, vice president of development at Javalobby. He and Javalobby founder Rick Ross both said they are already using instant messaging.

Both also said they do not use Sun’s tools and do not plan to. Schmidt, however, said he did like the Application Profiler feature.

Sun, though, has tough competition in IBM Rational, Ross said.

“I think that it looks like Sun is trying to play catch-up with IBM because IBM has such powerful market penetration with their Rational product line [and] high-end enterprise modeling. It would appear Sun is trying to enter that game,” Ross said.

Java Studio Enterprise 7 is in beta release now and will be generally available sometime after Jan. 1, 2005, for Solaris and Windows. It is priced at an annual fee of $5 per employee or $1,895 for a single perpetual seat license.

Sun next spring plans to release the subsequent version of Java Studio Enterprise, which will feature capabilities for business logic and application lifecycle management.

The Opteron-supportive JVM, meanwhile, is to be available as part of the JDK that will ship as part of Solaris 10. The JVM will enable developers to build Java applications for the Linux, Windows, and Solaris environments.  Early access to the JVM is planned for within 30 days of Nov. 15. Sun on Tuesday did not provide specific information on the availability of Solaris 10 but might do so next week as part of Sun’s “Network Computing” event.

“Introduction of a 64-bit JVM is a momentous occasion in our ecosystem,” allowing developers with data- and transaction-intensive applications to use the full power of 64-bit infrastructure, said Margaret Lewis, director of software strategy at AMD.

Sun on Tuesday also announced that Solaris 10 would support the company’s line of development tools and Java technology platforms, including the recently released J2SE 5.0.  Sun Studio 10 compilers for C, C++, and Fortran will be included with Solaris 10. Sun Studio 10 is in an early access release now and will ship later this year. Java Studio Enterprise and the Java Studio Creator tool also will function with Solaris 10.

The JDK has been updated to include the early access to J2SE 5.0 64-bit Opteron support for Solaris.

Free trial versions of Sun’s developer tools will be included with Solaris 10.