This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Java Buzz
by Jens E.
Original Post: MyEclipse: The Switzerland of Software
Feed Title: MyEclipse Blog
Feed URL: http://www.jroller.com/myeclipseblog/feed/entries/rss
Feed Description: IDE/tools issues & comments
Despite perception to the contrary, the application development tools market is getting smaller not larger.
Companies are shoveling their resources into AppDev tools, which has fueled a recent flurry of acquisitions (RedHat/Jboss/Exadel, Oracel/BEA/Workshop/NitroX, Embarcadero/Codegear), and the result has created a plethora of vendor lock-in technologies and service stacks. Even Hewlett Packard's decision to acquire EDS may be a first step toward a middleware and AppDev tools play. For these big players in marketplace, it is simply the nature of the beast to look for an always-bigger market share.
Not to rub salt in any recently-opened wounds, but that leaves a vanishingly small number of pure, independent Enterprise/Web software tools companies; and that includes Genuitec.
But why do independent vendors continue to stand tall as some of the ivory towers of popular tool divisions crash? The answer may lay in the “big boys'” overall business strategies. The M.O. of large companies has traditionally been to either funnel their tools customers into purchasing larger hardware pieces or to give away the tools as add-ons to middleware, services or hardware sales. In short, development tools today seem to serve a means to and end rather than the best interest of the user or to reflect common usage patterns.
Thankfully, the old adage of “the customer is always right” now applies to software tools. The customer is demanding more flexibility, less lock-in and greater customization options from their tooling, and they are not always satisfied with the big boys' response (as this recent blog about a presentation by Neal Ford demonstrates). As a result of this frustration, users are often turning to completely vendor-neutral, customer-focused (and not lock-in prone) tool suites.
The concept of vendor-neutral software is easy one to grasp: a developer encounters many different needs during the day, irrespective of their development tools capabilities. They then turn to outside companies to fill these needs so they can do their job more effectively. These outside companies develop tools for their users rather than for specific hardware or software stacks. They recognize that developers' hands easily get tied when customizing their IDEs to fit different projects and tools necessary for completing their projects within the constraints of lock-in tools.
Genuitec has championed the vendor-neutral model in the tools space with the MyEclipse line of products. We have stepped away from any one operating system, hardware stack, software bundle or “it wasn't invented here” mentality. Our customers work on a plethora of different projects with different hardware vendors and requirements, so the MyEclipse team developed an IDE that is compatible with multiple servers, usage patterns and platforms.
As an example, Spring and Hibernate code bases do not naturally play nicely together, but their dual functionality is one of the most commonly used configurations for web development. Among the many firsts, MyEclipse has integrated both, given them dual capability and brought two very different camps together in a customer-friendly way – and by customer request. Similarly, Genuitec ported the Matisse GUI Designer from Sun's NetBeans project to provide our users with popular Swing functionalities. Why? Because our customers asked us to, and we were just crazy enough to do it. Matisse isn't an Eclipse project, and is not natively compatible with Eclipse. But we recognize that some technologies “outside” the traditional Eclipse capabilities still have value – especially when they are based on customer demand.
Relating this to fresh headlines, most of us are aware of the recent buyout of BEA by Oracle, MySQL by Sun, CodeGear by Embarcadero and a multitude of other acquisitions in our space. If you are using these tools, what will happen to your stack in the coming months? You may be locked in, and at the mercy of the new company's play on them. A vendor-neutral solution, like MyEclipse, can easily alleviate these concerns with full support for over 30 application servers and hot-sync deployment. This type of universal support not only benefits the customer in terms of usability, but also in terms of stability. Vendor-neutral companies who remain outside the boundaries offer the user great tools they need without worrying about a company's good standing.
We are not arguing the need for developers to have any specific tools; nor are we taking sides with which hardware systems are best. Instead, we focus on delivering the most integrated, complete and affordable solution possible to our users regardless of their situation.
In summation, remaining completely neutral allows companies like Genuitec to span the spectrum of the newest and most popular technologies and deliver those to our customers. We are unconcerned with what solutions are competitive with one another, which allows us to adopt technologies that serve customers the best, not those that serve a larger corporate agenda. Our freedom from these agendas enables developers to do their jobs with the technologies they request.
You‘ll notice there are very few tools-only companies left in the space, and they‘re vendor-neutral and quite pervasive. Coincidence?
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