Tuesday, 3 October 2006

Visual Pack for NetBeans on the Anvil

Sun Microsystems has announced the availability of source code for NetBeans Mobility Pack and NetBeans Mobility Pack for Connected Device Configuration (CDC), which will be released under the OSI-compliant Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL).

Java ME development tools represent in mobile Java development and boasts visual authoring features that is said to speed the creation of applications for the vast majority of mobile devices.

"Community involvement is key to the strength of the NetBeans platform," said Laurie Tolson, vice president, Java Developer Platforms Group, Sun Microsystems. "We are experiencing continued excitement for some of the industry's mobile developer products. We believe by open- sourcing the code, it will attract even more developers to embrace the platform; thus strengthening the community" he added.

The NetBeans Mobility Pack was quickly recognised as a mobile IDE and has been leveraged by Java ME developers and leaders including Sprint, SonyEricsson and Ricoh. Based on the NetBeans IDE, the Mobility Pack includes key features including end-to-end application development, device optimisation and porting solutions and an Ant-based build system.

NetBeans Mobility Pack for CDC is a new addition to the NetBeans portfolio. The Mobility Pack for CDC allows Java ME developers to use the Matisse graphical layout system to create mobile Java applications for devices supporting the Connected Device Configuration version of Java ME, which offers a programming and runtime environment.