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Inprise Corp. is promising to simplify the development, deployment and management of distributed applications with its new application server, an integrated suite of enterprise middleware and development tools.
According to the company, the Inprise Application Server promises to simplify the integration of today's heterogeneous enterprises. It offers visual development, deployment and management functionality on a foundation of enterprise-strength, standards-based transactions, security and object-communication software.
According to Michael Barnes, senior analyst at Hurwitz Group Inc., in Framingham, Mass., Inprise is heading down the right path with its application server-centric approach.
"It is optimal for deploying strategic distributed applications. What they're attempting to do is coordinate and integrate all their various technologies."
The majority of IT organizations are starting to look at application servers as an appropriate deployment vehicle for distributed applications, Barnes said. But to some extent, if Inprise executes the application server effectively, programmers won't see too much of a difference during the initial development.
"In a perfect world the deployment environment should be transparent during development," he said. "What I'd like as a developer is to have the ability to build the application, build the logic and then, once I'm ready to deploy it, that's when I'd think about where I actually want to put that logic as opposed to developing an...