Today at EclipseCon, Microsoft announced that they are joining the Eclipse foundation as a Solutions member.
(slide image courtesy of Ian Skerrett via Twitter)
Microsoft already delivers a number of Eclipse-based tools today; the Azure Toolkit for Eclipse and the Java SDK for Azure can be used to build cloud applications that can ru on Azure, and the Team Explorer Everywhere plug-in allows developers to work with the Visual Studio Team Services from within the Eclipse IDE. These plug-ins are available from the Eclipse Marketplace.
Microsoft were also on-stage during the EclipseCon keynote, in which Tyler Jewell announced the Eclipse Che 4.0 release, and announced interoperability with Eclipse Che and Azure and Visual Studio Team Services.
Microsoft are also announcing that they are open-sourcing the Team Explorer Everywhere plug-in, under an MIT license with a contributor license agreement to allow code to be contributed back.
In addition, Microsoft is getting into IoT support by adding Azure IoT support to Eclipse Kura, so that IoT gateways can connect to applications running in the Azure platform. Senior Program Manager of Azure IoT, Oliver Bloch, said:
Connecting to the cloud many different devices of various form factors, powered by eclectic platforms running apps developed in random languages to build an advanced end-to-end IoT solution seems (and often is) as complicated as this sentence is long… Let’s take a look at how it’s done with Azure IoT services, device SDKs and tools in a demo-heavy session for developers. From sensors to advanced analytics, you’ll discover how to take advantage of the open source SDKs and tools that make it easy to connect devices to capture and analyze untapped data as well as monitor and control your IoT infrastructure.
The membership of Microsoft in the Eclipse Foundation highlights that they are deeply committed to cross-IDE support for their tooling. Dave Staheli, Software Engineering Manager of the Visual Studio Team Services, said:
Modern applications require varied tools and languages to address multiple platforms and form factors. Often, different tools are used by teams to plan, code, build, track, test, deploy, and monitor. How can these activities be normalized to reduce team friction? This session details an approach Microsoft is taking to plugin development. By building plugins for different IDEs that integrate with a common set of team services, developers can use diverse tools to participate in the same team activities. We’ll share experiences in reusing code across plugins for different IDEs, give demos with Eclipse, IntelliJ, and Visual Studio, and discuss technologies on the brink of making this even easier.
Our announcements today further strengthen our investment in cross-platform development. And our membership in the Eclipse Foundation formally recognizes our to Eclipse and Java developers. We’re looking forward doing more with the Eclipse community going forward. If you have ideas or feedback, I’d encourage you to please share with us through our Visual Studio UserVoice Site.
Finally, Microsoft have a Java Tools Challenge to invite Java developers to build apps and extensions for Visual Studio Team Server.