Servoy USA has debuted what it calls "one code base for desktop AND Web applications" with the release of Servoy 4.0, a cross-platform development and deployment environment.

Version 4.0 includes a major overhaul to the IDE from proprietary to Eclipse, giving developers a standards-based IDE that most are familiar with to help in ease of use and getting people up to speed on the product. "It breaks down a lot of barriers," notes Bob Cusick, managing director and one of the founders of Servoy USA.

Servoy allows companies and independent software vendors to create user interfaces to SQL back ends and deploy them as client/server and/or browser-based applications. "In Servoy," Cusick says, "you can literally just write it once and deploy it at the same time to both client/server and the browser from the same code base." The product enables developers to build applications on any platform or database and deploy them to any platform or database without making any changes to the code.

Another plus Servoy offers is maintainability, according to Cusick. "Creating software is only 30 percent of your costs; 70% of your costs are ongoing maintenance and time to market. If a tool can get you to market quicker, you boost your bottom line."

This is how it works: A developer specifies a database connection, whatever that may be, and sets up a main connection to that database. Then the product shows a list of tables and views. As you drill down further, it shows fields or columns. The developer adds the fields or columns he or she wants to include in the application to the form he or she is using, and that's it. "Servoy goes in and takes care of all the database connections and deploying. All the infrastructure, we handle for them," Cusick explains.

The transition to Eclipse enhances the product with team sharing capabilities, meaning large development teams can use standards-based source code control. Version 4.0 allows for the connection of multiple databases from different vendors.

In addition, the upgrade includes an open source plug-in for Jasper Reports, as well as another open source project, called DLTK (for "dynamic language toolkit"). DLTK lets developers take dynamic languages and compile them into Java byte code, further allowing them to write normal Javascript and debug it live in client/server mode as well as inside a browser.

Servoy 4.0 is targeted at any company with disparate data that needs applications built quickly and/or unified data views. Customers include Wells Fargo, Motorola, Sony, UCLA, and Stanford University.

Competitors include .NET, force.com, Silverlight, Coghead, and Bungee.

Pricing starts at $349 per concurrent user. A server license with unlimited browser support starts around $25,000. An introductory community edition that includes five concurrent client licenses for non-commercial use is available free of charge.

For more information, go to: www.servoy.com