Borland Software Corp. and IBM Corp. are teaming to boost development of database applications for the Microsoft Corp. .Net Framework.
The agreement between the two companies, to be announced Thursday, is intended to provide customers with solutions for developing and managing the application lifecycle for .Net without vendor lock-in, according to Borland and Microsoft.
Officials at Borland and .Net both said momentum is growing for .Net.
"It's the rapid evolution of the Windows environment and Microsoft's growth into the enterprise, and we are there with [Microsoft]," said Jeff Jones, IBM director of strategy for IBM DB2 Information Management Software in San Jose, Calif.
"We see .Net growing very well with our developer community," said Borland's Simon Thornhill, vice president and general manager of .Net solutions at Borland, in Cupertino, Calif.
Through the arrangement, a 60-day trial version of Borland's C#Builder development environment for the framework will ship with IBM's DB2 Universal Database software. Additionally, Borland will ship DB2 Universal Developer's Edition with Borland C#Builder for the .Net Framework. DB2 Universal Developer's Edition is a developer's platform for designing, building, and prototyping applications for deployment on DB2 client or server platforms.
C#Builder is an integrated development environment intended for heterogeneous enterprises. It provides database interoperability with Borland InterBase, DB2, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, and other databases.
Borland is now shipping DB2 Universal Developer's Edition with C#Builder, while IBM plans to ship trial versions of Borland C#Builder with DB2 this fall.