"Today's enterprises seek RIA solutions that not only ease development pains when creating business-critical Internet applications but also leverage existing IT assets - without compromising performance or functionality," said Coach Wei (pictured talking with SYS-CON.TV), Chairman and CTO of Nexaweb, as Nexaweb continued its fast-paced frontal assault on the RIA market by releasing today the latest versions of its RIA software platform, Nexaweb Platform 4.2, and its Eclipse-based IDE, Nexaweb Studio 2.2.

"Our unified programming model is standards-based and fully interoperable with many third party solutions, mitigating future risks associated with both system and user growth and emerging regulatory and standards issues," continued Wei - who is also a speaker at SYS-CON Events' SOA Web Services Edge Conference & Expo in June (June 5-6, Roosevelt Hotel, New York City). 

With the release of Platform 4.2 and Studio 2.2, Nexaweb believes enterprise application developers can gain competitive advantage through advanced new features for creating and migrating business-critical Internet applications that are feature-rich, responsive, maintainable and easily accessible to distributed, cross-enterprise users.

Both from both a functionality and ease-of-development perspective, Nexaweb Platform 4.2 and Studio 2.2 raise the bar for RIA development and takes Nexaweb as a company further along its path to the premier enabler of "occasionally connected computing."

The enhanced Desktop Client feature bridges online and offline computing, fully achieving Nexaweb's "occasionally connected computing" vision.

"Additionally," says Wei, "the declarative data framework and support for Eclipse Web Tools Project enable developers to fully leverage existing investment and skills, and significantly lower the complexity and cost of RIA development and maintenance."

Nexaweb Platform 4.2 and Studio 2.2 key features include:

• Desktop Client for Offline Support: Provides ability to create installable versions of Nexaweb-powered applications that will automatically update with Web-based deployments, enabling enterprise to run applications in an offline mode. Developer benefits include a single development effort that will support users in various access modes, as well as reduced application TCO and maintenance costs of deployed users.
  
• Declarative Data Framework for Ease-of-Development: Eases development and maintenance of data intensive user interfaces (UI) by providing a declarative (no code) method of binding data to UI components. Developer benefits include: quicker creation of data-driven screens; lowered skill set requirements for designers; and more easily maintainable screens due to separation of data and presentation.
  
• Plug-in Framework Enforcing Corporate Standards/Re-use: Enables developers to easily create standard, reusable UI components that can: incorporate third-party components; be used across all projects and be maintained by a single team; and simplify maintenance by encapsulating complex UI code into smaller components.
  
• Automated Testing Tool Support for Ease of Maintenance: Provides support for industry standard testing tools, such as Mercury QuickTestPro, enabling enterprise quality assurance staffs to carry out successful application deployments.
  
• Support for Eclipse Web Tools: Provides a robust tool set that is fully integrated with the new Eclipse Web Tools Project led by IBM and BEA, significantly increasing developer productivity.