Sun Microsystems Inc. announced Monday a new version of its NetBeans open-source integrated development environment.

The NetBeans 4.1 IDE features out-of-the-box support for J2SE (Java 2 Standard Edition) 5.0, J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) 1.4 and J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition) 2.0, according to Sun.

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In addition, Sun announced new plug-ins under open-source development for BEA System's Inc.'s WebLogic application server, IBM's WebSphere and the open-source JBoss application server.

NetBeans 4.1 also features an Ant-based build environment, refactoring and enhanced mobile application development support, Sun said.

"No other Java development tool on the market today combines the ease of use of NetBeans 4.1 with this level of comprehensive support for J2EE application development," Jeff Jackson, vice president of Java development and platform engineering at Sun, said in a statement.

And in a jab at the competing Eclipse open-source development environment, Jackson added: "The search, download, test and assemble cycle that is required by other open-source development offerings cannot even approximate what NetBeans provides out of the box for free."

This article was originally published on eWEEK.com.