Sun Microsystems, has announced the second phase of the Technology Preview for its Sun Java Studio Creator, code named "Project Rave." The product brings together the power of the Java platform with a simplified development model to provide a streamlined, highly productive working environment. Java Studio Creator applications deploy to the Sun Java System Application Server - or any other J2EE-compatible server - breaking the vendor lock-in enforced by other tools.

"Phase one of the Creator Technology Preview has generated a flood of positive feedback from developers," said Rich Green, vice president, Developer Platforms Group, Sun Microsystems. "By the release of the Early Access code, we expect a very stable code base for developers to test drive."

Phase one of the Technology Preview program for Java Studio Creator was announced in December 2003 and has received wide interest. Sun is rapidly applying the preview feedback, which is being used to fine tune both the tool itself and the support infrastructure around it: examples, tutorials, blueprints and more. The public Early Access release is slated for Spring 2004.

Java Studio Creator includes:

Drag-and-drop layout of user interfaces and component infrastructures that provide consistent look and feel of applications;

Simplified event-based coding model based on JavaServer Faces technology;

Simplified access to databases, provided by JDBC Rowsets technology;

Simplified access to Web services via the Java-to-XML technologies; and

Reduced code complexity and simplified application deployment as a result of new metadata features in the J2SE 1.5 platform.

Like all of the Sun Java Studio tools, Java Studio Creator is based on the NetBeans open source framework (version 3.5), which has achieved 2.1 million downloads since its June 2003 release. Java Studio Creator is also slated to support the Solaris Operating System, Windows, Windows XP and Linux when the tool becomes generally available in summer 2004.

• Project Rave - First Thoughts
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