On August 29, 2006 Sony Ericsson announced that it is joining the Eclipse community as Add-in Provider Member. By becoming an Add-in Provider, Sony Ericsson aims to contribute to the Eclipse ecosystem through creating Eclipse plug-ins of benefit to the global mobile application developer community.
Eclipse is an open-source community bringing together a number of leading organizations to create the Eclipse Platform. The platform is designed for building applications, integrated development environments (IDEs) and various tools.
“We have received many requests from developers to support open-source initiatives. Eclipse is language independent allowing us to cater for both UIQ 3 and Javaâ„¢ Platform, Micro Edition developers. Eclipse has an active community with strong support, and its plug-in architecture makes it possible for companies like Sony Ericsson to extend its use and help further develop and refine it for the benefit of the global developer community,” says Mikael Nerde, Head of Developer Program & Content Planning at Sony Ericsson.
The Eclipse Platform is turned into a Java IDE by adding Java development components and it is turned into a C/C++ IDE by adding C/C++ development components. It becomes both a Java and C/C++ development environment by adding both sets of components.
Mikael Nerde, Head of Developer Program & Content Planning at Sony Ericsson.
Sony Ericsson plug-ins
Sony Ericsson has already released a plug-in providing Eclipse IDE integration for the Sony Ericsson Java CDC Platform 1 supported by the P990 smartphone and M600 messaging device, as well as the Eclipse Device Explorer Plug-in which allows developers to remotely control the Java Application Manager on Sony Ericsson mass-market phones from within any Eclipse based IDE.
“Sony Ericsson is a well-respected player among Java ME and UIQ software developers, and we are looking forward to their contributions to the Eclipse open-source community. Joining the Eclipse Foundation is a significant undertaking for any company and we appreciate the opportunity to work with Sony Ericsson Developer World to extend the features and use of the Eclipse platform,” says Mike Milinkovich, Executive Director of the Eclipse Foundation.
By becoming an Eclipse Add-in Provider Member, Sony Ericsson is joining other industry leaders such as Ericsson, Redhat, SAS, JBoss, Oracle, Palmsource, Compuware, Hitachi and Fujitsu. Eclipse is used by a significant number of developers globally and by providing plug-ins for Java and C++ development, Sony Ericsson aims to facilitate a better development environment for both Java ME and Symbian OS UIQ developers.