As expected, Sun Microsystems Inc announced the beta version of its Forte for Java Community edition yesterday, the first product to be released following its acquisition of NetBeans Inc in October and the entry level offering in Sun’s development tool portfolio. Aimed at single developers for client side Java applications, the software will be available for free download and will become fully available in February, Sun said. The product was formerly known as NetBeans Developer but when Sun acquired NetBeans it said it would rebrand the products under the Forte name. The community edition includes a Java and HTML editor, multi-threaded debugger, object browser and an HTTP server. It will run on Solaris, Linux, Windows 98 and Windows NT. Sun didn’t say whether the code would be available via its pseudo open source Community Source License model. More information is expected once the product becomes fully available in February.
An intermediate level offering, Forte for Java internet edition, is expected sometime in the first quarter, Sun says. The internet edition, formerly NetBeans Developer Pro, is aimed at small teams of developers to allow them to write web-based applications for multiple clients – PCs, network computers, handheld devices – and a single web server. The final component of Sun’s line up of Java development tools is Forte for Java enterprise edition (Forte’s SynerJ), which also integrates components of NetBeans’ developer enterprise tool set – in development when Sun acquired the company.
In other news, Sun also announced the beta version of release 2.0 of its Forte Fusion enterprise application integration (EAI) technology. The product, which isn’t available until the first quarter, includes enhanced data transformation functionality by adhering to the latest W3C XSLT standard; an enhanced Java-based adapter tool kit (to enable developers to build Java adapters to enable inter-application communication) and integration of Sun’s JMQ, or Java Message Queue. The actual product will ship in the second quarter, Sun said.
