On 28 June 2005, Oracle announced that it:

• Will make the JDeveloper integrated development environment (IDE) available free for all developers
• Proposes to lead a Java Server Faces (JSF) tooling project within the Eclipse Foundation open-source community and plans to join the Apache MyFaces project as a core contributor

The two parts of the Oracle announcement are separate but related, and are both intended to promote the Oracle technology stack and expand Oracle's leadership in the Java tools community. Making JDeveloper free should generate more interest in the Oracle Fusion Middleware stack of technologies. However, Gartner expects JDeveloper to remain Oracle's application development technology of choice, despite the company's expanded role within Eclipse. Oracle will eventually be compelled to commit more heavily to Eclipse, but this development could be years away.

JDeveloper is a solid, feature-rich IDE that is nonetheless often overlooked by the larger Java development community. Oracle's decision to make it free is clearly an attempt to counter the low cost of the Eclipse IDE and place JDeveloper in the hands of more developers, and also to strengthen Oracle's middleware market potential by removing the cost of tooling from the equation. This is part of a broader strategy designed to gain Oracle greater recognition as a service-oriented architecture (SOA) "supervendor" competing against IBM, Microsoft and SAP.

Oracle's proposal to lead a new Eclipse project focused on the emerging JSF standard builds on a similar plan, announced in April 2005, to lead an Eclipse-based Enterprise Java Beans 3.0 tooling project. Given Oracle's commitments and the tight integration of JDeveloper with the Oracle Fusion Middleware technology stack, we expect the company to expand its Eclipse support as the alternative developer toolset for customers unable or unwilling to commit to JDeveloper as their primary IDE.

Recommendations

Enterprises looking for a full-featured, solid and supported Java IDE: Consider JDeveloper for an enterprise Java development toolset and Oracle Fusion Middleware for a complete SOA platform.

Eclipse developers: Consider targeting the proven Oracle stack as your deployment platform.

Analytical Sources: Michael Blechar and Mark Driver, Gartner Research

Recommended Reading and Related Research

• "Predicts 2005: Open-Source Software Proliferates" — Open-source software will expand into a larger universe of applications, thanks to development cross-fertilization and reduced vendor lock-in. By George Weiss and others
• "Eclipse Is Poised to Be a Strategic Technology Consortium" — Eclipse is emerging as an open-source technology market force, but must expand its membership and comply with Java standards to become strategic. By Mark Driver and Michael Blechar

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