According to The Eclipse Foundation, the new initiatives extend the Eclipse ecosystem into the embedded and device software markets. The projects are increasingly popular with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and vendors of real-time operating systems, software development tools and EDA tools, the foundation said.

"Eclipse is quickly becoming the universal platform for tools integration with OEMs and tools vendors," said Mike Milinkovich, executive director of The Eclipse Foundation, in a statement. "The CDT and DSDP projects are extending the platform and provide the frameworks specific for embedded and device developers.""

As part of these initiatives, the next release of the CDT Project will focus on supporting large C/C++ projects as well as integrations with a more diverse collection of build and debug tools, The Eclipse foundation said. It will feature a new indexer architecture that makes it easier to search and cross-reference C/C++ code and new expanded debugger support to handle different variants of gdb/MI protocols often found in large scale C/C++ development organizations, according to the foundation.

A new Mobile Tools for the Java Platform Project will provide frameworks for runtime management of devices and emulators, build management and deployment of J2ME applications, mobile device debugging, application creation wizards, UI design tools, localization and mobile security extensions, The Eclipse Foundation said. The initial release is scheduled for June.

A new Native Application Builder Project, proposed and led by Fujitsu, will provide a visual GUI builder and graphics runtime libraries for device applications running on Linux, Windows CE, ITRON and other device operating systems, The Eclipse Foundation said. It is also scheduled for released in June.

Additional projects that are part of these initiatives include a Device Debugging Project focused on building enhanced debug models, APIs and views to provide greater visibility into and control over device software targets, and a Target Management Project creating data models and frameworks to configure and manage remote systems, their connections and their services, The Eclipse Foundation said.

"We've demonstrated significant progress since DSDP was established as a top-level Eclipse project last year," said Doug Gaff, leader of the DSDP Project Management Council from Wind River. "Community participation and our vision for a common, open standards based device software development platform are taking shape more quickly than expected. The first projects will release this June and commercial products are expected to ship shortly after."

Demos of CDT and DSDP projects can be seen this week at the Embedded Systems Conference, the Eclipse Foundation said.