In the embedded segment, as in almost every other application area, platforms that consist of hardware or a combination of hardware and software have given way to ones that include the Web. And the more designers use the Web, the greater the need for open integrated development environments (IDEs).

A platform familiar to the embedded world for Java development is Eclipse, an open environment for tool integration built by a community of tool providers. Operating under the open-source paradigm, Eclipse provides tool developers with better flexibility and control over their software technology.

Eclipse is an extensible, open-source IDE that launched in November 2001, when IBM Corp. donated $40 million worth of source code to form the Eclipse Consortium, which manages the continued development of the tool. The dominant characteristic of Eclipse is the ability of the IDE to accept open-source plug-ins written by the Java developers themselves, similar to capabilities in Microsoft's Visual Studio and Sun's NetBeans Platform.

Eclipse can run developer-written plug-ins that work seamlessly with other plug-ins written by other developers. It differs from traditional IDEs in that it claims to be platform- and language-neutral.

The Eclipse Consortium (www.eclipse.org) has announced upcoming improvements to its software in the form of Version 3.0, which should be implemented by mid-2004.

In this In Focus report,we'll take a look at discussions about Eclipse from a few of its many avid fans. Among the contributions are articles from QNX Software Systems, Genuitec, Wasabi, Tensilica and a couple of independent developers.

Three other articles round out our report. LynuxWorks discusses VisualLynux, which is built on top of Microsoft's VisualStudio IDE. VaST Systems Technology Corp. talks about a virtual platform that exhibits both speed and accuracy. And Emulation and Verification Engineering (EVE) looks into the future of embedded design, where design platforms will be controlled in software via transaction-based technology.