Eclipse Platform R2.1 Now Available

• Improvements in Performance and Tool Integration
• Adds MacOS Workstation Support
• Consortium Grows to 34 Supporting Members

RALEIGH, NC--April 15, 2003--Today, the Eclipse consortium announced availability of R2.1 of the popular open-tools integration platform, incorporating many changes that improve usability and performance, including workbench navigation enhancements, user-configurable key bindings, new Ant support and more flexible project layouts. The Java development tools have been significantly upgraded with editor and debugger improvements, many new re-factorings and more. R2.1 adds MacOS to a list of supported development platforms that already includes AIX, HP/UX, QNX, Linux, Windows and Solaris. In addition, the Eclipse community is continuing to provide and enhance tools that make it easier to build plug-ins that integrate new functions and facilities.

"While our sights are set on future versions of the Eclipse Platform, we wanted to provide useful enhancements to the R2 code base," said John Wiegand, Eclipse Project Lead. "We want to retain platform stability and upward compatibility for the large community that is now releasing plug-ins based on Eclipse R2."

A major user of tools for software development, Ericsson clearly understands the impact of Eclipse for projects with an international scope. "With major software development projects being run in 16 countries world-wide, there is great focus on sharing information between tools and between development teams," said Jaak Urmi, Corporate Director of Software Technology at Ericsson. "Eclipse is seen by Ericsson as a major initiative that will lead to the tools interoperability we need."

Five new supporting members have recently been welcomed to the consortium that propels this multi-language, multi-platform, multi-vendor ecosystem. New members include: Ericsson, Fraunhofer/FOKUS, LogicLibrary, QA Systems and SilverMark. This expands the consortium to 34 supporting members and adds to the momentum that Eclipse has seen with over 7 million download requests logged at the eclipse.org website since November 2001. A complete list of supporting member companies is available at http://www.eclipse.org/org/index.html.

A worldwide "eco-system" of tools providers and consumers is forming around the Eclipse Platform. To date, more than 260 Eclipse Platform oriented projects have been recognized by community sites like http://eclipse-plugins.2y.net and http://www.sourceforge.org that independently track and host Eclipse related projects. The acceptance of Eclipse R2.1 is phenomenal. Within the first 48 hours of availability online, the eclipse.org servers logged more than 1 terabyte of download requests.

Eclipse makes it easier for technology producers and consumers to create, integrate and use software tools, saving developers time and money. Eclipse is now supported by offerings from providers of a broad range of development technologies including specialists in modeling, code generation, metadata management, testing, embedded computing, enterprise middleware, collaboration, services, research and application systems vendors.

A growing number of offerings "Powered by Eclipse Technology" are now available from member companies like Catalyst (OpenMake), Flashline (CMEE), IBM (WebSphere Studio), Instantiations (CodePro Studio), MERANT (PVCS), ParaSoft (Jtest), QNX Software Systems (Momentics), IBM/RATIONAL (XDE; ClearCase), Teamstudio (Analyzer for Java), Telelogic (Synergy), TimeSys (TimeStorm IDE) and others. Embarcadero, Genuitec, Interwoven, MacroMedia, MKS, Parasoft, Sitraka, StarBase, Versant and Versata have introduced commercially available Eclipse based offerings.

Full details of the Eclipse consortium, open-source community, the Eclipse Platform and royalty-free downloads are available at http://www.eclipse.org. A summary of new and noteworthy changes in the R2.1 Eclipse Platform is available at: http://download2.eclipse.org/downloads/drops/R-2.1-200303272130/whats-new.html.