Eclipse to release new plug-in

A new Eclipse plug-in will be released in August that looks to speed up how Java/J2EE developers can map their applications code to underlying SQL databases, says Integration Developer News.

Robert Greene, the project lead, said the latest Eclipse plug-in is a standards-based object-relational mapping design time tool, built to comply with the latest Java ORM standards (JSR 220).

The first milestone release for JSR-220 ORM toolkit, due in early August, delivers "forward" and "meet-in-the-middle" mapping for JSR220 runtimes, Greene said.

Sun Microsystems is offering subscriptions for Java technical support for the first time since creating the language 13 years ago, reports InformationWeek.

Bill Curci, product marketing manager for Java Standard Edition, says customers have been using Java long enough for software built with earlier Java SE releases, such as Java 1.4 or 5.0, to have passed the six-year mark for which Sun offers free Java technical support.

Instead of being forced to update older applications to a more recent Java SE release, they will have the choice of paying for continued support to remain on an older version.

PhoneFromHere has just signed a five-year agreement with Digium, developer of the Asterisk open source telephony platform, to improve and commercialise the embedded Java softphone created by Digium engineers, says TMCnet.

The company is setting up standards to integrate voice technologies in the networking market.

PhoneFromHere has been signing more integration projects and agreements that it believes give it a competitive edge.