Borland is Back
The Borlandbrand name still carries a lot of cachet with developers. This fact wasacknowledged by officials at Inprise as they announced they were jettisoningthe Inprise name and going back to Borland starting in the first quarter nextyear. The 17-year-old company, known as Borland until 1998, changed its name toInprise to reflect a new focus on enterprise middleware development and tode-emphasize its more well-known status as a technical tool provider. It wasn'tlong before the company brought back the Borland brand for its developmenttools division, while retaining Inprise for middleware and as the name of thecorporate parent. The company continues to hold a loyal following of users ofits Delphi C++ development toolset.
"Werecognize the influence the Borland name has on customers," says Dale L.Fuller, president and CEO of Inprise. "Borland has always been well knownfor its ability to simplify complex technologies and the new name signals areturn to the commitment to deliver superior technology that helps speed andease the software development lifecycle."
In aseparate development, Borland began shipping a new set of Java developmenttools that support Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) deployments. The toolset,Borland JBuilder 4 Foundation, is available for free download from Borland'sWeb site. "JBuilder 4 Foundation's pure Java development environment,including an integrated editor, debugger, compiler, visual designers, andwizards, provides developers on Linux with an ideal basis for developing Javaapplications," says Bill Claybrook, research director at Aberdeen Group.He adds that the toolset's sample applications, tutorials, and multimediatraining facilitate quick learning of the language.
The toolwill deploy Java applications across Windows, Linux, and Solaris, says Tony dela Lama, vice president of Borland's Java business unit. JBuilder 4 Foundationallows users to develop, compile, run and debug applications using JBuildervisual tools, as well as through traditional coding methods. Key productfeatures include the AppBrowser, to simplify code management; CodeInsight, toreduce syntax errors and speed coding; the Java 2 platform graphical debugger;and Borland's Two-Way-Tools for Pure Java. Users can customize and extend theenvironment to suit development needs using the Open Tools API, which aims toenable easier integration of tools and components from third-party vendors.
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BorlandSoftware Corp./Inprise Corp.,Scotts Valley, Calif., www.borland.com
AberdeenGroup Inc., Boston, www.aberdeen.com