Borland Software and IBM announced upgrades to their
development tools this week designed to support heterogeneous
environments and more closely link software creation to business
goals.
IBM unveiled new Rational developer tools, and Borland rolled
out the new version of its Delphi Windows development tool. With
these announcements, both are maneuvering to infuse their platforms
with business process automation commonly used in other areas of
enterprise operations like core product design and
manufacturing.
"What we're seeing today in IT shops is the need to take another
leap from just thinking about developing new applications and
deploying new applications to thinking more strategically about IT
priorities and how the overall IT assets and resources can be best
matched to deliver business value," said Melissa Webster, an
analyst at IDC.
IBM announced this week that all of its Rational development
tools will be based on the open Eclipse 3.0 framework. This will
support the integration of modelling, testing and requirements
management tools at a deeper level so that all those methods to
build applications can be used consistently, Webster added.
IBM also launched tools such as a portfolio manager that will be
folded into Rational through an acquisition and a new software
architect, software modeler and manual tester.
The software modeller includes support for Unified Modeling
Language 2.0 for visual-based modelling to document and communicate
different views of a system. IBM Rational will continue to support
its other modelling solutions, IBM Rational Rose and IBM Rational
XDE.
"IBM is very well positioned to help its customers take a more
strategic look at the software development process," Webster said.
"Rational was an early preacher of the gospel to integrate
processes into the lifecycle. IBM clearly understands that breaking
down the barriers between teams in the software development process
is very important."
To support both Java and .net developers, IBM has introduced new
features into its existing Rational tools.
IBM Rational Web Developer for WebSphere (formerly WebSphere
Studio Site Developer) and IBM Rational Application Developer for
WebSphere (formerly WebSphere Studio Application Developer) will
include functionality designed to simplify Java development by
automating tasks and reducing manual coding. The Rational
Functional tester includes testing customisation and other features
designed to support .net users.
Meanwhile, Borland this week announced Delphi 2005, the latest
version of its Windows development tool, that will incorporate
support for Win32, .net, Delphi and C# in one development
environment while integrating with Borland application lifecycle
management tools.
Previously codenamed Diamondback, the new version of Delphi is
designed to support Borland's overarching Software Delivery
Optimization plan to apply business process automation to software
development tools.
"It's really the first time that a Windows development tool has
come out that has a vision of optimising for developers both new
Windows development and projects for the migration to more modern
architectures," said Michael Swindell, director of product
marketing for developer tools at Borland.
With Delphi 2005, Borland is providing an alternative to the
end-to-end development platforms being offered by IBM and
Microsoft, said Mark Driver, an analyst at Gartner.
Many companies that have application development platforms from
both Microsoft and IBM find features like testing, quality
assurance and source control in both suites, which can create more
complexity than is required, he added.
Delphi 2005 will ship next month. The Architect Edition will
cost $3,000 (£1,667) for new users and $1,999 for an upgrade, while
the Enterprise Edition will cost $2,500 for new users and $1,500
for an upgrade. The Professional Edition will cost $999 for new
users and $399 for an upgrade.
All of the new IBM products will be available before the end of
the year. They will range from $5,500 per user for the Rational
Software Architect to $1,000 per user for the IBM Rational Web
Developer for WebSphere Software.
Heather Havenstein writes for Comptuerworld