Meta Group study forecasts Java IDE standardization

Computerworld - A Meta Group Inc. evaluation of the Java integrated development environment (IDE) market indicates that competition among Java application server vendors will force them to provide solid development environments. Thus, "efforts to gain market position will therefore be dominated by battles to control the application platform," the company said in a news release.
Java IDEs are developer tools designed to enable the editing, compiling, testing and development of Java language-based applications. Within this subset of the broader IDE market, vendors must provide the ability to edit source code and debug executables, Meta said.
The evaluation, called the Java IDEs MetaSpectrum (reading the full evaluation requires membership), looked at 10 companies in the Java IDE market. Borland Software Corp., IBM and Oracle Corp. are the clear leaders in the market, while Sun Microsystems Inc., Jet Brains and Novell-Silver Stream are distant challengers, and ObjectVenture Inc., Compuware Corp., Computer Associates International Inc. and Pramati Technologies are distant followers, Meta said.
Other findings of the evaluation include the following:

• Independent vendors will either fill specific niches (focusing on ease of use, technical computing or specific processes) or establish market leadership by enabling server and platform choice.


• Outside of the major players, the market will consist mainly of small vendors with a specific technical focus.


• Also expected are new tools aimed at providing architected rapid application development solutions utilizing approaches such as Model Driven Architecture. This will include companies currently in the followers area that are early to market.


• From 2003-05, professional services experience will play a critical role as most organizations move to a new phase of applications, requiring the ability to replace aging client/server projects. This will necessitate training, frameworks, consulting and outsourcing partnerships.


• From 2003-04, all major IDEs will evolve to become integrated life-cycle development environments, incorporating collaborative development from 2004-06. Current offerings focus on editing, compiling and debugging as well as screen painting.


• Most organizations will either use the tools provided with a platform or specifically choose tools that provide portable support across platforms, though still requiring high productivity and integration to the platforms.