IBM Unveils New Offerings for the Open Source Community

Company Announces Customer Support for Developers Using Eclipse

CAMBRIDGE, MA - 07 Sep 2006: EclipseWorld -- Reinforcing the company’s strategy around open source business models, IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced new software and resources to help customers leverage their investments in open source development tools and resources. The new offerings will help software development teams build Eclipse-based open integrated development environments that are technologically diverse and vendor neutral.

IBM is also unveiling today a new customer support program, IBM Rational Elite Support for Eclipse, that will provide hands on technical assistance to the more than 2.3 million users* of Eclipse worldwide. Available in Q4 2006, users of Eclipse-based tools, including those distributed by eclipse.org or other providers, can purchase world-class support for Eclipse -- a service no other major software vendor currently provides.

“IBM is responding to the growing needs of customers and the open source development community, by addressing the requirement for commercial vendors to complement the current open source community model,” said Bola Rotibi, Senior Analyst, Ovum.

With today’s set of announcements, IBM is nurturing the next phase of Eclipse adoption -- expanding its focus on development tools to now include the development of standards-based cross platform business applications for desktops and servers. IBM is unveiling new software and resources to help developers embrace open source and Eclipse Callisto:

* New Eclipse Callisto-based software development tools -- IBM is rolling out a comprehensive set of Eclipse Callisto tools to help clients quickly design, develop and test applications. IBM Lotus Designer is a rapid application development tool that helps clients to quickly build new components that run in WebSphere Portal 6.0, delivering a vision of “situational application” development to this environment. IBM plans to release a no-charge public downloadable beta in late-September from developerWorks at http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/workplace/products/designer/. By mid-October, IBM will open up IBM Rational Software Architect and IBM Rational Functional Tester version 7 for beta testing. Clients participating in the beta program can experiment with new and improved features that help implement service oriented architectures, systems development, and geographically distributed applications. To pre-register for the open beta, visit http://www.ibm.com/rational/beta/v7/.

* New Eclipse Callisto resources -- developerWorks, the skills-building hub of IBM’s developer community with nearly 5.5 million registered users, offers a wide range of free Eclipse-focused tools to help developers build and maintain their Eclipse skill-set. As the latest addition to its expanding portfolio of Eclipse resources, developerWorks recently unveiled a new educational tool designed to help Eclipse users learn about V3.2 enhancements. The “Building Cheat Sheets in Eclipse V3.2” tutorial will allow developers to view interactive tutorials from within the Eclipse Workbench and learn how to perform complex Eclipse tasks. For more information, please visit the Eclipse Project Resources on developerWorks at http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/top-projects/eclipse.html.

“With this announcement, IBM continues to help clients enhance the value of their investments in open source by delivering enterprise class tooling based on the latest distributions of Eclipse and by providing the first enterprise class support offering for organizations heavily invested in Eclipse,” said Danny Sabbah, general manager, Rational Software, IBM Software Group. “These new offerings will further empower developers to have the flexibility they desire while also helping our clients better govern their software development investments within a broader organizational context.”

For more information, visit http://www.ibm.com/software/.

1 *IDC, Worldwide Adoption of Eclipse: The Framework Resonates with Java Developers in All Regions, Steve McClure, August 2006, IDC# 203080.

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Karen Lilla

IBM Media Relations

IBM

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