The company also unveiled Rational Data Architect, an Eclipse-based tool to help architects understand information assets, map assets to each other and create database and integration schemas. A new e-forms tool being announced, Workplace Forms Designer 2.6, lets forms designers to build XML e-forms for automating business processes. It, too, is built on Eclipse.

A help interface plug-in for Eclipse is being announced, providing a multilingual, cross-platform, open source help system. "It's an offering to allow you to quickly build an Eclipse help system-based application to deliver online content," said John Kellerman, manager of Eclipse strategy at IBM.

The technology is available on IBM's alphaWorks Web site.

Compuware at EclipseCon 2006 introduced version 4.1 of its OptimalJ tool for model-driven Java development, featuring Professional Edition and Developer Editions built on the Eclipse platform. The Professional Edition also supports the rival NetBeans open source tools initiative.

At the SD West 2006 conference last week, panelists at one session cited deficiencies in application modeling. But Compuware officials stressed that while modeling poses a paradigm shift, it does increase productivity. Development via modeling can "almost cut in half the amount of time it takes to deliver a Java application," said Mike Burba, marketing director at Compuware.