DETROIT—Compuware Corp. Thursday is expected to announce that it has enhanced its membership in the Eclipse Foundation and has become a strategic developer member of the organization.

Compuware is expected to make the announcement at its OJ.X developer conference here Thursday, where Mike Milinkovich, executive director of Eclipse, is scheduled to deliver a keynote.

Compuware is the third Strategic Developer to join Eclipse in less than a month. Last month Iona Systems plc. and Nokia announced their membership in Eclipse at the Strategic Developer level.

Eclipse continues to grow, in an attempt to "eclipse" Microsoft's environment. Click here to read more.

Compuware is a strategic partner for Eclipse, in that Compuware has long been an avid NetBeans supporter. And NetBeans is the primary competitor to the Eclipse platform, as a competing open-source development platform.

But Compuware officials said the company would not be abandoning its support for NetBeans.

Meanwhile, sources said they expect Compuware to participate in the Application Lifecycle Framework (ALF) project at Eclipse, among others.

Compuware had been an add-in provider member of Eclipse, and the company's Java development solution, OptimalJ, supports Eclipse.

This article was originally published on eWEEK.com.