Platform-as-a-service vendor LongJump has enhanced its easy-to-use graphical Web-based application development environment with a Java development suite that allows complete customization. [For more on Web-based applications, see Application builders in the sky]I spoke to LongJump CEO, CTO, and Founder Pankaj Malviya a few weeks ago about this announcement, and got a demo of the new customization facilities. Before founding LongJump, Malviya worked on CRM at HP, and then was Software Architect at Internet Devices and Jareva Technologies.According to Malviya, using LongJump is an alternative to offshoring Enterprise application development, and competes with Salesforce.com’s force.com developer platform. He pointed to the following features and benefits of LongJump: Java-based, Eclipse-ready for immediate, non-proprietary coding Extensive customization of actions, UI, class definitions, etc. Access to LongJump Ajax UI SOAP and REST interfaces for creating flexible enterprise systems connectors Built-in sandboxing, debugging and deployment Fast on-demand application prototyping using browser-based IDE (can take developers 80% before coding) Reusable, relational data object model to reduce re-designing or re-coding of specific logic or interfaces I didn’t ask for early access to the new LongJump features, so I’m not in a position to give you a first-hand impression from a development perspective. From what I saw in the demo, however, any Java/JSP developer should be able to become productive with LongJump fairly quickly, and the pre-built relational objects provided should make quick work of many common applications. Software Development