BANGALORE: Borland Software Corporation is planning for a summer release of its newest .Net development tool, a JBuilder look-alike for C sharp developers. Under the project, codenamed Sidewinder, the product is currently under beta testing across the globe. The beta testing exercise started just a couple of week back, confirmed Malcom Groves, Product Line Sales Manager - Asia Pacific, RAD and DSP Business Units, Borland Software Corporation.

Groves was recently in India meeting customers and partners and simultaneously identifying beta testing sites. "Indian field test would start soon. A lot of application development happens in India. Most of the developer community want both J2EE and .Net platform development tools. We are probably the only company who can give the developer a platform independent development tool," claimed Groves.

The product will be made available in the Indian subcontinent simultaneously assured the Managing Director of Borland India, Satyen H Parikh. "India is a big market. The e-business application, application development information and application tools market for BFSI sector is estimated to touch Rs 600 crore by the 2004-05 time. The telecom sector is poised to touch Rs 80 crore and the software exports sector is pegged at Rs 200 plus crore. This is a big opportunity for us, especially after IBM bought over Rational. The market is virtually without much competition for us."

Microsoft has been promoting Borland indirectly a lot these days amidst rumors on the web about a possible buyout. "They have been talking about our initiatives on stage in their conferences. Now that’s big. In my view they would be promoting our product rather than being a competition," felt Groves.

As for Microsoft dropping the .Net branding, "they are just playing it low. The hype has been created so much, that Microsoft cannot do away with the .Net branding. They have created so much hype that it is everywhere and it is a little complicated now to understand what is .Net. Microsoft would probably come with components of .Net," commented Groves.

Gartner estimates roughly 2.6 million C sharp developers and an equal number of Java developers by the year 2006. These developers are expected to use Borland tools to develop applications and take advantage of money, time and complexity spent on development otherwise.