IBM Sets Roadmap for Future Rational Tools

ORLANDO, Fla.—IBM announced the roadmap for its Rational tools and will enhance its desktop developer tools suite by the end of 2006, followed by a new version of the overall tool set in 2007, company officials said.

In an interview at the IBM RSDC (Rational Software Development Conference) here, Lee Nackman, vice president, Product Development & Customer Support at IBM Rational, said that in the fourth quarter of 2006, IBM will deliver enhancements to the IBM Rational Release 7, Team product suite.

Among the key enhancements will be support for Eclipse 3.2, the upcoming version of the Eclipse open-source application development platform that is expected at the end of June.

Eclipse 3.2 is the “Callisto” release of the Eclipse platform, where the Eclipse organization will release 10 top-level Eclipse projects simultaneously.

Nackman said Eclipse 3.2 support will mean support for the JDK (Java Development Kit) 5. And Rational’s tools also will support the latest versions of IBM’s WebSphere application server and WebSphere Portal server offering.

In addition, IBM will continue to make improvements in performance and memory usage, as well as make simplification and usability improvements to the tool set, Nackman said.

And not only is IBM going to move to Eclipse 3.2, but the company is expanding its Eclipse support in various products.

“We’re working on an Eclipse-based client for RequisitePro that brings that product fully into the Eclipse fold,” Nackman said.

To read more about IBM’s Rational revamp, click here.

Meanwhile, IBM is working to separate many of its desktop tools so that customers will be able to select the kind of capabilities that they want to install for users in particular roles.

The IBM Rational tool set offers capability for several different roles, and not every developer needs all of it, Nackman said.

Moreover, there is a capability for defining different roles and then tailoring the installation for those different roles.

Read the full story on eWEEK.com: IBM Sets Roadmap for Future Rational Tools

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