Web application server company Bluestone Software Inc has announced a freeware utility, server platform and visual tool, all designed to harness the power of Java and XML working together. Available for free download from the Bluestone site, XwingML is designed to allow people to see the interaction between XML and Java at first hand. Users write an XML document. XwingML reads the document and creates a GUI in the Java Swing class. To customize the GUI, all users need do is make the appropriate changes to the XML file – a far easier prospect than hacking away at the Java code. Next comes Bluestone’s XML-Server, priced to move at $2995 per CPU. This is built to allow organizations to take in any data source – a database or an SAP application, for example – and transfer that information to an XML document. As with WebMethods’ B2B software, XML-Server makes it possible for people to use XML as a standard file interchange format for business to business application integration and ecommerce. Finally, Bluestone plans a development tool called Visual-XML for public beta test in March and for commercial release in April, priced at $99. That tool creates an XML document and associated Java applet, which are collectively known as a doclet, to run within XML-Server. Ideally, a user of Visual-XML shouldn’t have to know any XML or Java to be able create usable doclets. 1999 is the year for early adopters of XML, said Bluestone’s senior VP of marketing, John Capobianco, we want to make it easy for people to go and propagate and use it.
