June 6, 2007; 07:22 AM Mainsoft® Corporation, a leading .NET-Java EE interoperability company, today announced the release of Mainsoft for Java™ EE, version 2.0, (formerly called Visual MainWin®
for J2EE), a suite of products that enables .NET developers to produce
.NET Web and server applications that run on Linux and other
Java-enabled platforms, without having to rewrite their code or learn
new development skills. Version 2.0 introduces support for Microsoft's® Visual Studio® 2005 IDE, the .NET Framework 2.0, ASP.NET 2.0 controls, role-based security, and C# generics.
"Mainsoft's cross-compilation software establishes C# 2.0 and Visual Basic®
as fully supported languages by the Java Virtual Machine," said Yaacov
Cohen, president and CEO of Mainsoft. "We've invested $12 million in
technology that transforms Java EE into a multi-lingual platform. Our
enterprise customers and software vendors de-couple development
decisions from their production decisions, using the highly productive
Visual Studio IDE for rapid application development and Java EE servers
or portal servers for highly secure, scalable deployments."
Mainsoft
for Java EE is the result of the company's four-year collaboration with
Mono. Sponsored by Novell, the open source development initiative is
developing an open source, multi-platform version of the Microsoft .NET
(.NET 1.1 and .NET 2.0) technologies.
Cross-Platform .NET 2.0 in Practice
Since September 2006, when Mainsoft released its 2.0 Technology
Preview, thousands of .NET developers have piloted Mainsoft's 2.0
technologies, integrating advanced .NET 2.0 and Java technologies into
unified open source deployments:
- During the "Race to Linux 2.0," Hector Armando Rodriguez Esparza,
a software developer from Mexico, used Mainsoft's Grasshopper 2.0
Technology Preview and the Visual Studio 2005 IDE to port Microsoft's
Small Business Site Starter Kit to run on Linux in less than four
hours. More than 600 developers joined the international developer
competition to take open source .NET applications to run on Linux.
- Urix, Inc.,
an industry leading predictive modeling software company and Mainsoft
customer since 2005, is using the Visual Studio 2005 IDE and Mainsoft
software v 2.0 to extend its proprietary logic and analytics
calculation engine to open systems, without having to rewrite more than
150,000 lines of C# code in Java. According to Atul Mistry, vice
president of technology, Urix, Inc., "Mainsoft enables our in-house
.NET development team to focus on core product innovations, without
having to worry about the added costs and complexities associated with
maintaining separate code bases." A Mainsoft customer since 2005, Urix'
software is currently running on Java EE servers and UNIX at many of
the largest US healthcare insurance companies.
- Janison,
an Australian e-Learning technology company, recently purchased
Mainsoft for Java EE v. 2.0 to customize and localize its e-Learning
software, written end-to-end in .NET, for the Department of Vocational
Education in Vietnam. The department contracted Janison to deliver .NET
and UNIX deployments by the end of 2007. According to Wayne Houlden,
managing director, "In the past, our decision to build our software in
.NET limited our ability to compete for some e-Learning contracts with
educational institutions where they required their application to be
able to run on Windows or UNIX platforms. Using Mainsoft for Java EE
and Visual Studio 2005, we are free to extend our existing .NET systems
and skill sets to multiple platforms and support customers that use
open systems."
- Opal Future Technologies, a
$20 billion pension fund management company based in Israel, chose
Mainsoft for Java EE, Portal Edition, to consolidate eight pension
funds and dozens of .NET and Java support services into a unified
system that runs on IBM WebSphere Portal. Opal's .NET development team
used Visual Studio to integrate several .NET services in a matter of
weeks, rewriting less than one percent of the code. According to Alex
Libis, information and data security manager of Opal, "Rewriting the
.NET applications in Java would have taken at least 18 months, an
introduced unacceptable risk. Using Mainsoft's software, our existing
.NET team quickly achieved native integration with other Java EE
portlets, without sacrificing performance."
What's New in Mainsoft For Java EE
Mainsoft for Java EE, v. 2.0 is available in three editions:
- The Developer Edition
(a.k.a. Grasshopper 2.0) is freely available and designed for
individual developers and small group deployments on Apache Tomcat. It
includes development and runtime licenses free-of-charge and enables
developers to create Web projects using advanced .NET 2.0
functionalities such as out-of-the box ASP.NET 2.0 authentication;
authorization with a pure Java datastore for membership, roles, and
profiles; and ASP.NET 2.0 controls, including master pages, login
control, wizard, themes, and data controls such as GridView. To support
multi-platform deployments, Grasshopper 2.0 comes bundled with the
Apache Derby database, a highly portable database with a pure Java
runtime. To speed the debugging process, developers can use the Visual
Studio 2005 debugger to attach the Web application to Java and control
its execution.
- The Enterprise Edition is
designed for enterprise developers and multi-CPU deployments. It
includes an integrated development support for IBM WebSphere® Application Server and Tomcat; the ability to deploy to standard Java EE servers such as JBoss and BEA WebLogic®;
multi-CPU capabilities; and the ability to programmatically interact
with native Java class libraries and directly invoke their class
methods.
- The Portal Edition enables
enterprises to populate Java EE portals such as IBM WebSphere Portal
with ASP.NET 2.0 applications and services, such as SQL 2005 Reporting
Services, in a tightly integrated Front-End Service Oriented
Architecture. Using Mainsoft for Java EE, Portal Edition, .NET
developers produce standards-compliant Java portlets that run locally
on the Java EE portal, delivering a rich and well-integrated end-user
environment, with role-based, personalized interfaces, single sign-on,
unified navigation, inter-portlet communications, and other portal
services.
Mono and Open Source .NET
"Over the last four years, Mainsoft has been a significant contributor
to the Mono project," said Miguel de Icaza, vice president of developer
platforms, Novell and the leader of the Mono project. "The team's
expertise in the .NET 1.1 and 2.0 development platforms and their
expertise in open systems have expedited our shared goal of making it
easier to run Windows applications seamlessly on Linux."
About Mainsoft Corporation
Founded in 1993, Mainsoft Corporation is a leading provider of
.NET/Java EE interoperability solutions. The company's product suite
and services enable businesses to deliver a complete front-end Service
Oriented Architecture (SOA), with secure, role-based access to .NET and
Java services. Currently, Mainsoft is helping more than 150 businesses
deploy Windows applications natively on open systems, including
WebSphere Portal and WebSphere Application Server as well as on the
UNIX and Linux operating systems. For more information about Mainsoft,
visit www.mainsoft.com.
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