Java Developer Journal recently spoke to Mike Milinkovich, Executive Director of the Eclipse Foundation about open source and the enterprise. Mike emphatically stated that the Eclipse Rich Client Platform (RCP) is a very important strategy and future for the Eclipse Foundation. “We are seeing a lot of uptake, in particular ISVs, from organizations adopting RCP as the platform for building their next-generation products,” he said. Mike also said that Eclipse as a community is focused on a number of different areas including providing innovative solutions for enterprise Java developers. “In addition, we have a leadership position in providing the platform for embedded tools development and our SOA and ALM initiatives are coming on strong.”

On the issue of portability between platforms, Mike said Eclipse RCP allows developers to choose now or in the future the ability deploy on Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris, or HP-UX. “We are working on embedded platforms like the Nokia Series 60. This is pretty compelling, especially if you are an ISV and want to have a solution for potential Mac and Linux customers.”

Mike also hinted of a top-level project called the SOA Tools Platform that is building the frameworks and exemplary tools that enable the design, configuration, assembly, deployment, monitoring, and management of software designed around a service-oriented architecture (SOA). An Ajax project are also in the works. “Developing an Ajax tool chain and frameworks is pretty natural for us. Specifically, we have an Ajax Toolkit Framework (ATF) project and an Ajax framework project called Rich Ajax Platform (RAP). The other interesting thing is that if you look at the wider Ajax and Rich Internet Application (RIA) community, everyone seems to be building their tools on Eclipse - Adobe, Nexaweb, and Laszlo to name just a few,” he said.

Mike also discusses Sun’s relationship with Eclipse and the three most prevalent open source issues.