Sun Unleashes Its New Visual Java Development Environment - For Under $100 @ JDJ

Sun used the first day of JavaOne to announce the availability of Sun Java Studio Creator (JSC), its visual development environment aimed at capturing the corporate developer and thereby expanding further the total number of programmers worldwide developing to the Java platform. 

"Java Studio Creator is the culmination of a strategy Sun announced last year at the JavaOne conference to address the market for corporate developers ? a hot, high-growth market," said John Loiacono, executive vice president of Software at Sun.

The first Sun product to be released under a radical new subscription model as part of the Sun Developer Network program, Java Studio Creator is going to be sold as follows: users will receive it for free when they purchase a Sun Developer Network Standard subscription, priced at US$99 per developer per year. (Or half that if they do it here at JavaOne this week.)

The first pure Java technology visual development tool, JSC is designed "to address the needs of skilled developers whose primary concern is the rapid delivery of business-critical applications," says Sun, adding that the $99 price includes a perpetual license for JSC and access for one year to product updates and upgrades, plus access to premium content and Community Support Forums.

Java Studio Creator is currently available on the Solaris Operating System, Windows and Linux platforms. Sun also announced support for the Mac OS X platform, and the availability of the Early Access release of the Macintosh version. As part of a special promotion, Java Studio Creator for Mac OS X will be made available via free download under a Sun Developer Network subscription that is included with the purchase of an Apple 15- or 17-inch PowerBook.

Java Studio Creator is a comprehensive develop/debug/deploy solution that includes Sun Java System Application Server 8, Platform Edition, a component of the Sun Java Enterprise System, as a target development and deployment platform. It also includes the J2SE Software Development Kit (SDK). Key features include: