News

Sybase to resell JBuilder

• By Michael W. Bucken
• March 27, 2002

Sybase Inc. has turned to longtime tools rival Borland Software Corp. in an effort to gain a foothold in the Java development tool battle. The firms disclosed the agreement, under which Sybase will resell Borland's JBuilder development tool, at the JavaOne conference in San Francisco.

Sybase, maker of the PowerBuilder toolset that once sat atop the world of client/server development, moved to add JBuilder to its product mix to "greatly enhance our J2EE development stack," said Billy Ho, senior vice president and general manager of the Sybase e-Business Division.

Sybase will call the Borland tool JBuilder 6 Enterprise-Sybase Edition, which officials said can enhance developer productivity with integrated support for the Sybase e-Business platform. The Sybase version of JBuilder will support the company's EAServer and Enterprise Portal offerings, Ho said.

Sybase officials said customer input played a key role in the decision to resell JBuilder. For example, Option One Mortgage, a residential mortgage banking firm whose development operation extensively uses EJBs, JSP and asynchronous messaging, used JBuilder to integrate EJB components for the Sybase EAServer database. Officials at Option One Mortgage said the agreement should help developers there.

"Sybase and Borland teaming together will provide a unified and simplified development and deployment environment," said Nixon Philip, senior software developer at Option One Mortgage. Even prior to the joint Sybase-Borland effort, Philip said developers at his firm used the tools of both firms to "quickly deploy comprehensive, production J2EE applications that are helping to keep us ahead of the competition."