IBM readies ‘Atlantic’ tools plus open source effort

GRAPEVINE, TEXAS — IBM at the Rational Software Development User Conference here Monday revealed a planned upgrade to its Rational and IBM tools portfolio, dubbed “Atlantic,” and also pledged to make some IBM products available under an open source format.

Due later this year, Atlantic will be the next major release of the IBM Software Development Platform, which features IBM’s and Rational’s tools. Atlantic focuses on facilities for modeling and testing as well as remote clients, said Mike Devlin, general manager of Rational software in the IBM software group.

Included as part of Atlantic will be a new ClearCase client that enables isolated users to better participate in team-based application development, Devlin said. Currently, remote teams can participate in a development project but a lone developer in a remote location has difficulty joining in, according to Devlin. 

While freely touting its Atlantic release, IBM officials would not discuss which products would be made available through an open source format, as part of upcoming announcements called “significant” by Buell Duncan, general manager of developer relations in the IBM software group. The company has been pushing for the Java programming language to be available under an open source format, something that Java inventor Sun Microsystems has been reluctant to do. Sun officials have countered that IBM ought to be willing to make its own products available through open source.

IBM made several product announcements on Monday that will be part of the Atlantic platform. Atlantic will feature technologies in the Eclipse 3.0 platform for sharing development artifacts. The Eclipse Hyades integrated test and monitoring environment also is featured.

Atlantic will offer support of technologies such as JavaServer Faces, for building interactive Web pages; Service Data Objects, for linking applications to databases; UML 2.0 modeling, for automating model-driven architecture efforts; and real-time deployment to WebSphere.

Also part of Atlantic is WebSphere Studio Device Developer 5.7, which is shipping on July 30, and three other tools: WebSphere API Toolkit, Workplace builder, and Workplace designer.

WebSphere Studio Device Developer 5.7 is intended to extend enterprise applications onto devices including cell phones, wireless systems, and PCs. Workplace API Toolkit, shipping in the third quarter of this year, is for integrating with the IBM Workplace platform. Workplace builder, also due in the third quarter, is a tool for business users with limited expertise in application development. Workplace designer provides a scripting tool for building standalone business applications or components with Workplace builder. It is due in a beta release later this year.

A software bundle released on Monday, available via the IBM alphaWorks Web site, features Interoperability Tool for Eclipse and .Net WinForms, enabling migration to Eclipse while using existing investments in .Net WinForms. Also included is IBM Reflexive User Interface builder, for testing the basic layout and functionality of a GUI or for use as a library within a Java application for building GUIs. IBM at the conference this week also is previewing OptimalGrid, for developers interested in porting applications to become grid-enabled.

IBM as a whole is boosting its emphasis on the open source Eclipse IDE. “You’ll see a theme of the Eclipse environment as the integration framework that’s really integrating across the whole technology base” for IBM and Rational tools and for other products as well, Devlin said.

Rational was acquired by IBM last year. While acknowledging that integrating IBM and Rational assets was painful, the company nonetheless is confident it has grown market share in tools.

“The integration is history from my [vantage] point,” Devlin said “What we’re now focused on is delivering the whole ‘on demand’ mission” and software, he added. On Demand is IBM’s strategy for flexible IT architectures.

A Rational user at the conference said IBM Rational has made progress in making the various Rational offerings function together. “My impression is it’s nice to see that the software products that Rational is buying up are working together,” said Glenn Cammarata, president of Satellite Software, which develops satellite-related software for NASA.

“When we got the products a few years ago, nothing worked together,” Cammarata said.

Asked if IBM had done a good job integrating with Rational, Cammarata said it was hard to tell. “I haven’t seen any adverse affects,” he said.

Separately from the Atlantic platform, IBM on Monday introduced IBM Rational Functional Tester Extension for Terminal-based Applications. The tool allows project teams to test IBM zSeries mainframe applications and iSeries terminal-based applications with the same tool used to test their Java/J2EE and Web-based client-server applications. The tool costs $1,245 per authorized user and $2,375 for a floating user license.

Also at the Rational conference, Zero G Software introduced SolutionArchitect, a software package for installation and configuration for building software packages using the new Solution Installation packaging technology proposed by IBM last week. IBM is seeking to have Solution Installation become an industry standard.