PowerSoft beefs up its Internet tools strategy

Sybase's PowerSoft unit has unveiled its 'PowerSoft Tools for the Enterprise' strategy in a bid to clarify what development tools it has and what it intends to do with them.

A central plank of the initiative is the company's decision to rationalise product names. PowerBuilder, PowerSoft's first and remaining key development tool, retains the same moniker, but Optima, its rapid application development environment, becomes Power.

Its Java tool, codenamed Jato, becomes PowerJ with shipment planned for next quarter, while its Web development tool, formerly known as NetImpact Studio, becomes PowerSite.

Although PowerSite was scheduled to ship at the end of last year, it is now unlikely to even move into beta until next quarter, while PowerSoft 're-evaluates market requirements'.

But, PowerSoft will keep the branding of its S-Designor modelling tools and Visual Components shrink-wrapped ActiveX controls intact.

Peter Kumik, PowerSoft's product marketing manager, said: 'Because the Net is such a fast-moving market, we needed to clearly identify product names and what the tools do.

'They all fall into a logical picture, but it's only possible to explain that when the market has evolved to a position where people can understand what these tools are for - that's the case now.'

He added that although PowerBuilder was still the company's core offering, it saw the other tools growing in stature over time as they met emerging market requirements.

As far as product roadmaps go, Kumik explained that the next version of PowerBuilder, codenamed Panther, is due to go into beta next quarter.

Panther will support a mixture of object models, including Java Beans, Corba and Dcom, to ensure PowerBuilder-based applications can interoperate in a heterogeneous environment.

The product will also include new debugging capabilities to deal with more complex object programming and support for OLEDB.

PowerSoft also intends to integrate all of its tools offerings more closely over the next couple of release cycles.