After recently adding support for BEA’s WebLogic Server 7.0 in its development environment for Java, Borland Software is furthering its relationship with San Jose-based BEA to offer a co-branded version, Jbuilder WebLogic Edition.
Under the terms of the agreement, BEA will resell Borland’s popular JBuilder Java development tool, and Borland, in turn, will build a version of JBuilder tailored to the WebLogic application server software.
“BEA and Borland have been working closely in the field for some time to best serve our customers,” said Alfred Chuang, founder, president and CEO of BEA Systems. “The deeper partnership and product cooperation between our two companies is intended to make JBuilder, WebLogic Edition one of the most productive Java development platforms in the industry.”
The shift comes as BEA’s former fallback for development tools, WebGain, has fallen into financial crisis, selling many properties to Oracle. And, in a deal announced yesterday, selling the company and remaining assets to TogetherSoft.
While the future of the WebGain’s formerly market-leading Java development tool, VisualCafe, is now in the hands of Togethersoft, the future of its relationship with BEA may be strained.
Although the partnership between BEA and Borland is not exclusive, having the co-branding as well as co-marketing will certainly sway users towards Jbuilder.
Despite a still brewing independent vendors’ market, Borland has staked out some important ground in setting up the agreement with BEA. BEA in-turn has established a default integrated development environment (IDE) provider, something IDC analyst Michele Rosen sees as particularly important for the company.
“It’s important for BEA that they have a good relationship with Borland, because unlike their major competitors, they don’t have their own Java IDE,” said Rosen.
The new edition, which is expected sometime in the next month, will add WebLogic Workshop, BEA’s programming tool for building Web services.
Importantly, it will also provide easy application deployment to BEA WebLogic Server, as well as support for the emerging JWS (Java Web Services) standard.
On the marketing side, the companies have agreed to jointly promote and distribute the developer product bundle, with the BEA and Borland sales forces working together to drive JBuilder, WebLogic Edition to market. Both BEA and Borland have agreed to promote and sell the new addition through their Web sites and through other distribution channels.
Over recent months Jserver has taken the lead in the market for Java tools, with the struggling VisualCafe, falling back to fifth, according to recent numbers from Evans Data.