Another vehicle of Eclipse's future growth will likely come from completely outside the software industry. Consortia from such diverse industries as healthcare, automotive, and finance regularly set software platform and interoperability standards. However, without a portable, cross-platform implementation of the standards, each consortium member must independently construct its own, solely based on the industry specifications. This tremendous duplication of work is both expensive and error-prone. Collaborating on building a common set of specification-compliant infrastructure would universally cut costs while insuring interoperability. But what competitors require before they can cooperate is a level playing field that benefits all of them equally. When they begin to research their options, they will find that Eclipse's maturity, extensibility, and royalty-free redistribution model is very attractive as the base for their collaborative development efforts.

Eclipse is constantly expanding, evolving, and surprising all of us. So much so that it would have been impossible to envision where it has gone in its first few years of existence. And, going forward, doing a reasonable job predicting what is next for Eclipse seems just as difficult. There's only one thing for certain; the future is arriving every day and no one really knows what it holds. Software visionary Alan Kay once said, "The best way to predict the future is to invent it." And, whatever the "next big thing" is, one thing is increasingly likely; it will be built on Eclipse.

About MyEclipse
An innovative, comprehensive, and affordable Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for Java, J2EE, and open standards technologies. MyEclipse Enterprise Workbench is a full-featured enterprise-class platform and tool suite for developing software applications and systems supporting the full lifecycle of application development. Facilities and features usually found only in high-priced enterprise-class products are included in MyEclipse, which extends the best practices and technology available from the latest Eclipse 3.1 SDK. Based on open standards and the Eclipse platform, MyEclipse redefines software pricing, support, and delivery release cycles by providing a complete application development environment for J2EE, WEB, AJAX, XML, UML, and databases and the most comprehensive array of application server connectors (25 target environments) to optimize development, deployment, testing. and portability.

About Genuitec
Genuitec, LLC is an Eclipse-based company offering innovative Java and J2EE development tools. It offers training and expert consulting and development services for the Eclipse SDK and rich client platforms. A sponsor of Eclipse Plug-in Central, Genuitec joined the Eclipse Foundation early in 2003 and is currently on the board of directors, actively participating in the organization's strategic development and direction. Genuitec was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in Plano, Texas.