Originally a holdout, Borland joins the Java Tools Community, a core group of companies looking to shape the future of tools in the Java space.

SAN FRANCISCO—Borland Software Corp. this week will announce a series of moves to bolster its position in the Java community, including joining a fledgling Java tools organization.

The Scotts Valley, Calif., company will announce at JavaOne here its membership in the Java Tools Community as a core member, a move the company resisted when the JTC formed earlier this year, said Lax Sakalkale, senior product manager at the company.

With its membership in the JTC, Borland joins a core group of companies looking to shape the future of tools in the Java space.

When the JTC formed in January, Borland remained a holdout among major Java tool developers, along with IBM.

"At that time we felt it was a little premature and we wanted to be sure the process of communication between the Java Community Process and the JTC was clear," Sakalkale said. "At the end of the day, Borland will support a standard. 'Toolability' should be clear."

"Toolability" is a measure of the ability to build tools around a platform, standard or other technology. In fact, the JTC will focus on producing Java Specification Requests for toolability and interoperability.

Meanwhile, Borland will announce Optimizeit ServerTrace 3, a performance optimization and management solution for the J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) platform and service-oriented architecture environments, Sakalkale said. The product is the performance testing tool in Borland's application lifecycle management set of solutions. It features enhanced J2EE performance diagnostics.

Borland also will announce a partnership with Empirix Inc., of Waltham, Mass., to combine Borland's Optimizeit ServerTrace with Empirix's e-Load load testing tool for Web applications.

And Borland and eBay announced an agreement to enable Borland JBuilder developers to build Java applications for the eBay and PayPal platforms. The announcement is similar to one Borland made last month at the Microsoft Corp. TechEd conference in San Diego, where Borland provided eBay and PayPal developer tools to developers who use Borland Delphi for the Microsoft .Net Framework.

Some observers view Microsoft's recent announcement of its Visual Studio Team System technology, which takes Microsoft's toolset deeper into coverage of the entire application lifecycle, as something of a threat to Borland, which has an established application lifecycle management toolset in the .Net arena.

For more on Microsoft's Visual Studio Team System, click here.

Asked whether Microsoft's move would mean more of a Java focus for Borland, Sakalkale said, "No, .Net is also pretty big to us. Borland is the Switzerland of the tools area. If customers are looking for an independent software provider, we are here."

This article was first published on eweek.com.

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