BEA Systems Inc. and Enerjy Software this week are expanding Java tools efforts while MKS Inc. is focusing on boosting Microsoft Corp.?s Visual Studio .Net development platform.

BEA is unveiling an enhanced version of its BEA dev2dev site for Java developers, adding a collaborative development tool called dev2dev CodeShare. Based on the CollabNet Enterprise Edition development offering, CodeShare is a bi-directional collaborative workspace designed to help developers share code and discuss issues. CodeShare includes tools for knowledge management, communication management, and project administration for open source projects. CodeShare is at http://dev2dev.bea.com/homepage/CodeShare.jsp.

"What we want to do is organize dev2dev developers that want to contribute toward open source projects and get them away, really, from individual contributions (and encourage) group contributions," said Andreas Angelides, community manager at CollabNet. An example of a project developers could work on is the Eclipse plug-in to BEA?s WebLogic Server.

Projects maintained within CodeShare feature a Web-based workspace and the ability to communicate with team members. CollabNet SCM (Software Configuration Management) is featured to track source code changes.

Developers on dev2dev also can participate in a portal that offers collaborative tools, newsgroups, best practices, technical content, and other features. Also unveiled on the dev2dev portal was technical content from O?Reilly Media.

Enerjy released Edition 6 of its Java suite of tools, which includes Code Analyzer, Memory Profiler, Performance Profiler, and Thread Profiler. The new release is intended to enable developers to focus more on code while working more efficiently, the company said.

New features in Code Analyzer include Rule Priority, in which a rule can be assigned a priority, and File Filters, for optionally ignoring certain files within a project and filtering files by specific name or by folder structures. Memory Profiler and Performance Profiler offer "On-the-Fly Profiling," in which configuration settings can be changed on the fly while an application is being profiled, without requiring restart of the application.

The three Profiler tools in the suite feature a "Status View" function, presenting a Status View when profiling sessions, displaying heap size, and the running or blocking state of each thread while the application is running. Developers can take snapshots; clear collected data; and pause, resume, or terminate an application. The Profiler tools also feature a "Table Export" function for exporting tables of data to files in both comma-separated and tab-delimited format, and then allowing for viewing, printing, or charting of the data.

Individual tools in the Enerjy suite are priced at US$295 each.

MKS on Tuesday announced expanded integration into the Visual Studio .Net 2003 development platform, linking the MKS Integrity Manager product for process and workflow directly to the developer desktop.

Through the Integrity Manager "Worktray," developers can receive work assignments, run queries, and review and update work without stepping outside of the Visual Studio .Net IDE. Software changes are linked to approved development tasks, providing for traceability of work and aiding in compliance initiatives and IT audits.

Integration between Integrity Manager 4.6 and Visual Studio .Net 2003 is available now. Users on maintenance contracts can obtain the integration at www.mks.com/community/index_i.jsp.