Microsoft's software development subsidiary in Hyderabad, South India, has announced it is developing JUMP to .NET, the company's Java User Migration Path (JUMP) for Microsoft .NET, consisting of a set of tools and technologies that will enable Java programmers to migrate projects to the Microsoft .NET platform.
A beta release of the JUMP to .NET is scheduled for the first half of this year, with a final release planned by the second half. The tools and technologies will work in conjunction with Microsoft's Visual Studio .NET.
"We are primarily targeting these technologies and tools at our customers who have developed applications using Microsoft Visual J++," said Srini Koppolu, managing director of the India Development Centre. "We want to take them to the .NET platform, both protecting their current investments in skills and code, while allowing them to continue to program, if they like, in Visual J++." The tools and technologies are likely to be useful to other programmers using the Java language as well, added Koppolu, though that is not the main objective of the development.
JUMP to .NET will include an Integrated Development Environment (IDE), a JDK (Java Development Kit) compatible framework, and converters from Java source to Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL) and from Java binary to MSIL. The tools and technologies are designed to improve the interoperability of the Java language with software written in other programming languages.
"The whole idea of MSIL is to support as many languages as possible, whether it is Visual Basic, C++ or Java," Koppolu said. " We are supporting Java as a language among 21 other languages which will be able to target the .NET framework."
The project to develop JUMP to .NET was started at the India Development Centre more than two years ago, with 30 engineers working on it. The development centre has emerged as a key software development resource for Microsoft. The centre is already responsible for the development of newer versions of Windows Services for Unix (SFU), including its integration with Microsoft's Interix product line to develop a unified SFU product that offers both interoperability and migration from Unix to Windows. The centre has also worked on the development of components of Microsoft Operations Manager and an add-on for Office XP.