Desktop platforms Toolkit

Eclipse welcomes new era

Martin LaMonica CNET News.com

Published: 30 Jan 2004 11:15 GMT

Deciding how to move forward with the rich-client application platform work at Eclipse will be one of the most important decisions for the new board to make, said RedMonk's Governor. That's because the rich client capabilities of the Eclipse software have the potential to challenge Microsoft's Windows lock on desktop software.

"An application based on Eclipse might have the manageability of a browser-based application but have enough richness and customer experience so that [it] is better than a Web front-end," Governor said.

Also next week, keynote speaker Grady Booch, an IBM fellow and a software development guru, plans to outline his vision for how programming will evolve into a more collaborative process, so that far-flung developers can more easily work together on software projects.

Booch is expected to take a longer view on software development's future in his keynote talk. Booch, a founder of Rational Software, IBM's tools division, said that existing collaborative tools, such as instant messaging or online meeting software, will need to merge with development tools for programmers to be more productive.

"For the most part, what separates us [from our goal] is the human problem," Booch told CNET News.com. "What can I provide in my technology to increase the bandwidth and reduce the noise in the communication in my disparate development groups?"