Sun not the ONE for its own consultants

Sun has chosen Compuware's OptimalJ for its consultants because its own Sun ONE Studio integrated development environment (IDE) lacks model driven architecture (MDA) functionality.

MDA aids the generation of code from business models, as it is able to speed up Java 2 enterprise edition (J2EE) development. Its increasing popularity is partly because it keeps application code and design models in step automatically.

Compuware will provide every one of Sun's 280 J2EE architects worldwide with OptimalJ and training.

"Sun consultants play the role of advisor more than implementer," said Edwin Schumacher, Compuware's director of product management for application development and integration.

Sun has also donated its own published patterns - best practice approaches to typical problems encountered by developers - to OptimalJ, to simplify J2EE code generation.

Dan Hushon, director of strategy for Sun professional services, said:"Sun believes that pattern-/model-driven architecture can accelerate the development of robust systems using our pre-existing intellectual capital around J2EE architectural patterns.

"This isn't so much an issue of recommending a competing tool to Sun ONE Studio but, rather, helping the customer find the right tool given their approach to modelling, design and development.

Hushon could not say when Sun ONE Studio would be enhanced to include MDA.

"This is interesting because of Sun's own Sun ONE Studio development tool," said Bola Rotibi, lead analyst at Ovum.

"Sun's services consultants write at domain level and are well-versed in J2EE. So it's a powerful endorsement for OptimalJ, but not for Sun's own tools."

The incestuous world of IDEs is demonstrated by the fact that OptimalJ makes use of Sun's open source NetBeans Java IDE and then adds its own functionality, as does Sun ONE Studio.