Oracle today announced that it is expanding its leadership role in driving developer adoption of the next-generation enterprise Java platform by spearheading a project within the Eclipse open-source community to support the Enterprise Java Beans (EJB) 3.0 specification. The specification serves as the cornerstone for J2EE 5.0 and marks a critical advancement that will significantly ease application development and improve developer productivity.

By bringing EJB 3.0 support to Eclipse developers, Oracle provides access to a first-rate development environment for EJB 3.0 and further demonstrates its commitment to the entire Java developer community. As the leader of the project, Oracle will help build an open source EJB 3.0 Object-Relational Mapping (ORM) tool under the Eclipse Public License that focuses on design-time tooling and supports deployment to any J2EE-compatible application server. The new tool will build on Oracle's expertise in persistence with Oracle(r) TopLink, a Java object-to-relational tool and deployment platform that provides advanced ORM capabilities suitable for mission critical enterprise applications.

"The future of the Java platform is dependent upon attracting a broad range of developers, in part through tools that simplify the entire development process," said Dennis Leung, vice president of development, Oracle. "Through this project, Oracle is providing Eclipse developers with access to one of the key technologies in J2EE 5.0. - an important element in Oracle's overall effort to simplify Java development for the broadest possible developer community."

Industry Support of Oracle's Commitment to Easing J2EE Development

"As a member of Eclipse since November 2002, Oracle has continuously demonstrated a sincere commitment to the Eclipse community," said Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation. "Oracle's extensive experience in EJB and Object persistence will be critically important to the success of providing world-class EJB 3.0 tooling."

"JBoss sees EJB 3.0 as the future of Java persistence and is committed to its success as a standard," said Gavin King founder of the Hibernate project and architect at JBoss, Inc. "The Eclipse EJB 3.0 Tools project is an important step in promoting the adoption of EJB 3.0 to Java developers, particularly those in the growing Eclipse community."

Delivering EJB 3.0 to All Java Application Developers

By driving the EJB 3.0 project within the Eclipse Foundation and delivering the Oracle Application Server EJB 3.0 Preview (announced in March 2005), Oracle is further illustrating its commitment to providing Java and Service Oriented Architecture developers productivity with choice. The EJB 3.0 Preview is available free for download at www.oracle.com/technology.