Seen: New RoboHelp, Web services management tools and a Groove thing

• By Scott Adams
• February 14, 2003

VSLive! in San Francisco proved an able launching pad for a slew of .NET announcements last week.

eHelp took the wraps off its new RoboHelp Office Pro for .NET. The San Diego, Calif.-based company aimed this -- the latest in a long line of help-authoring tools -- at developers working in VS .NET, said Michael Hamilton, eHelp product manager. This version of RoboHelp supports the .NET Framework, and includes tools for creating help systems in formats ranging from Windows forms and ASP.NET Web Forms to XML Web services, Hamilton said. It also includes context-sensitive Help APIs and a new server component, he said. The new product is expected later this month.

Representatives of AmberPoint Inc. joined Microsoft's Eric Rudder onstage during his keynote to announce that the Oakland, Calif.-based Web services management software maker was joining the Visual Studio .NET Integration Program (VSIP). AmberPoint also disclosed that it had reached an agreement with Microsoft to build and deliver both tools and management technology intended to help customers manage distributed applications based on the .NET Framework. (Borland also announced its participation in VSIP which, Microsoft said, now includes more than 130 industry partners.)

For its part, Compuware demonstrated DevPartner Studio Professional Edition 7.0.2, which incorporates new features for code review, automated error detection, performance analysis, distributed application analysis and code coverage analysis. Compuware representatives said the product integrates into Microsoft Visual Studio .NET and its associated IDE. It finds errors and performance bottlenecks in code, while explaining the errors; it also points developers to resources on the Web for further information.

Beverly, Mass.-based Groove Networks announced that it is ready to go into production of its Groove Toolkit for Visual Studio .NET. First announced last August, the toolkit is intended to make it easier for developers to create collaborative software for the Groove platform by using the integrated development environment in VS .NET. The new toolkit will allow developers to create and test Groove apps from within VS .NET. The company plans to ship an updated version that supports Visual Studio .NET 2003 by the end of Q2/2003.

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