It plans to standardize all tools in its new SOA suite of Crossvision applications on Eclipse Germany’s Software AG said Thursday that it has joined the Eclipse Foundation, an open-source community focused on providing an open development platform for building software.The company, a heavy user of XML (Extensible Markup Language) technology, plans to standardize all tools in its new SOA (service-oriented architecture) suite of Crossvision applications on the Eclipse platform, it said.In addition, the Darmstadt, Germany, company’s Natural 2006 application development environment, which allows developers to build and maintain complex business applications for any platform, will support Eclipse. Eclipse provides a plug-in based platform designed to make it easier to create, integrate and utilize software tools, saving time and money, according to the foundation’s Web site. The platform is written in Java and comes with extensive plug-in construction toolkits and examples.Key to attracting wider vendor involvement across the Java space, Eclipse was spun out of IBM in 2004 as a not-for-profit organization and has since emerged as an alternative to Microsoft Corp. in the application development space.Currently, more than half of all Java developers use Eclipse, according to Software AG. The goal of the Eclipse Foundation is to foster an open-source community that responds to the needs of the global developer community and serves as a platform for innovation, said Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the foundation. Software DevelopmentOpen Source