OTTAWA, CANADA: The Eclipse Foundation has announced the availability of Eclipse Rich Ajax Platform (RAP) 1.0, a freely downloadable Ajax platform for creating and deploying Rich Internet Applications.

RAP 1.0 is the first Ajax platform that allows developers to create Rich Internet Applications (RIA) using the Eclipse component model, based on the OSGi standard.

OSGi is a service-oriented, component-based environment that promotes the interoperability of applications and services. Organizations using RAP are now able to create Ajax and RIA applications that are component-based and integrate into existing enterprise systems.

"Using the OSGi component architecture for our Browser-based applications allows us to quickly create and deploy customizable applications", said Ludwig Neer, CTO of CAS Software.

He added, "The Eclipse Rich Ajax Platform enables us to create components that can be reused and extended by our partner companies. In addition, since Eclipse is open source and a de facto standard, we are avoiding proprietary frameworks, which is a very important thing for our partners."