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Macromedia Inc. last week delivered on its plans to make J2EE developers more productive.
The San Francisco company shipped versions of ColdFusion MX Server for BEA Systems Inc.s BEA WebLogic Server, IBMs WebSphere Application Server 5 and Sun Microsystems Inc.s Sun ONE (Open Net Environment) Application Server 7. It also shipped Macromedias JRun 4 for Apple Computer Inc.s Mac OS X, which supports ColdFusion MX in its developer edition.
Phil Costa, Macromedias senior product manager for ColdFusion, said the releases represent “a major transition for ColdFusion, to move from being a productivity enhancer to now becoming a new platform for J2EE [Java 2 Enterprise Edition] application server application development. It enables developers to build rich experiences for their users.” Costa said support for BEA WebLogic Server is new, while the support for WebSphere and Sun ONE represents upgrades for newer versions of those servers. Also new is support for IBMs AIX flavor of Unix, he said.
ColdFusion, a rapid scripting environment, has been known for its flexibility in allowing developers to quickly build Internet applications. Bringing that to J2EE will provide enhanced productivity to Java developers and foster more collaboration between non-Java and Java developers within enterprises, Costa said.
ColdFusion MX for WebLogic, WebSphere or Sun ONE Application Server costs $3,399. Meanwhile, officials said Macromedias support for Mac OS X is a significant step for the company and addresses customer demand.
Last week at Macworld Expo in San Francisco, Macromedia enhanced its relationship with Apple by announcing that JRun 4 will be available for Mac OS X. “Its a confirmation of our long-standing relationship with Apple,” Costa said. “We also will ship a developer edition of ColdFusion MX for J2EE for the Mac OS X platform.” Costa said demand for Mac OS support has been strong from the many ColdFusion developers with design backgrounds and from Web application developers who use Mac OS. “We were seeing heavy demand, and we needed to have a Mac OS X-based product,” he said.
Geoffrey Corb, vice president of systems development at Synergenic LLC, a Milford, Conn., developer of Web-based systems, said, “We are excited about the release of JRun for the Mac OS X operating system. Coupled with an Xserve from Apple, a powerful, cost-effective and easily manageable Web solution is created. This solution is comparable in cost to a Linux-based 1U [1.75-inch] Intel [Corp.] server, which is our current low-cost platform of choice.” Corb said Synergenic only recently began moving some of its business users and developers onto the Mac OS X platform. “Our design staff has been using it … and we are impressed with the capabilities of the Unix-based OS X operating system,” he said.
Macromedia JRun 4 for Mac OS X is priced at $899 per processor.