Red Hat has announced the global availability of JBoss Developer Studio, its open source, Eclipse-based, IDE that provides an easy-to-use solution for developers utilizing JBoss Enterprise Middleware. JBoss Developer Studio eliminates the need to assemble individual development environments, allowing developers and IT departments to utilize the complete solution from JBoss in one easily delivered installation.

Featuring pre-integrated tools and out-of-the-box capabilities, the solution leverages the high-caliber Eclipse-based developer tools that were made available on JBoss.org. JBoss Developer Studio incorporates Eclipse tooling, integrated JBoss Enterprise Application Platform, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux for development use with full access to Red Hat Network. Developer Studio also features tooling for technologies, including Java EE, JBoss Seam and Ajax, Hibernate and Persistence, JBoss jBPM, Struts and Spring IDE. JBoss Developer Studio is available for Windows and Linux through subscription from Red Hat for $99.

The Eclipse framework has been established for some time; however, developers have usually had to weave together their test and development environments from multiple frameworks and components. With this announcement, the potential of a comprehensive IDE that supports all development tasks, whether they are Java-, Ajax-, or Linux-based, has become a reality. While the stereotypical Open Source developer may be a command line-driven geek, most corporate developers operate in a reality where that there is never enough time to do everything that needs to be done. Developers are like any other artisans in that the quality of their work is directly affected by the quality of the tools at their disposal. Hence the importance of commercial grade developer tools for any environment, regardless of whether they are open source or not.

While Developer Studio will likely help steer corporate developer activity towards Open Source Architectures in general, and Red Hat solutions specifically; we do not see this solely as self-serving for Red Hat. Corporate developers can now have an integrated Eclipse-based development and runtime environment that is entirely open source and available from a single supplier. Considering that JBoss Seam allows developers to build applications in a consistent manner from a simple operational perspective, the potential to simplify, streamline, and reduce the cost of the developer's toolkit is considerable. Given the 100,000+ downloads of the beta code reported by Red Hat, there has been considerable interest in this offering, and if Developer Studio has met the expectations of the those giving it a try, this solution is well positioned to become the darling of many corporate developers. As such, it illustrates Red Hat's continued focus on broadening its market position as well the breadth and depth of its technology offerings.