Eiffel Software Announces Release of EiffelStudio 5.2; Provides Easy Migration Path to the Microsoft .NET Framework

Santa Barbara, California -- (September 20, 2002) -- Eiffel Software today announced the release of EiffelStudio 5.2. EiffelStudio is the flagship product of the company that created the Eiffel Development Framework, a simple and powerful system for developing robust, scalable, reusable software applications.

Widely regarded as a thorough, well-planned programming language, the Eiffel language serves as the foundation for the EiffelStudio development environment. Because of the efficiency of the language and the powerful tools in the environment, EiffelStudios users are demonstrating that they can produce 2 to as much as 10 times as much usable software in the same amount of time as can be achieved using other popular languages. Eiffel has thus gained specific prominence in recent years among developers and design team leaders in challenging enterprise environments, as well as among independent development teams who create high-quality reusable applications for smaller- to medium- sized companies.

EiffelStudio 5.2 is a great leap forward for EiffelStudio, and will help facilitate the industrys migration to the Microsoft .NET Framework," stated Chris Ambarian, Exec VP of Sales and Marketing for Eiffel Software. This will provide a great relief to the many companies who are saddled with existing applications that have become fragile and difficult to extend and/or modernize. With EiffelStudio, developers and architects can solve a myriad of challenging situations involving multiple languages and multiple platforms. This includes the migration of multiple existing applications from non-Windows environments over to one or more bulletproof, extendable applications on Microsoft Windows using .NET technologies. Designers can very easily bring their existing applications into EiffelStudio, and build a new Eiffel application based on them (without having to 'freeze their existing designs). When the new application is completely ready, they can simply and effortlessly port the application to Microsoft Windows and .NET technologies with essentially a few mouse clicks. No other development language or environment can offer such a clean, efficient migration solution.

We are pleased to see such a productive result of our collaboration with Eiffel Software," says Richard Burte, technical product manager for the Developer Platform and Evangelism Division at Microsoft Corp. The new EiffelStudio provides another opportunity for bringing existing applications over to the .NET Framework."

EiffelStudio 5.2 is a great way to create robust, reusable objects and libraries for Microsoft .NET. Eiffels Design by Contract feature makes it especially easy to create code that Visual Studio .NET developers can safely, reliably use in any programming language targeting the Microsoft .NET Framework.

Functional improvements to EiffelStudio over the previous version include:
•   A faster, more efficient compiler, redesigned to fully support all of the Eiffel languages available to developers using Visual Studio .NET
•   A completely redesigned EiffelBuild, Eiffel Softwares cross-platform GUI builder that enables developers to create applications that work identically on different platforms
•   Major improvements to EiffelStudios best-in-class debugger
•   A new Wizard that allows users to quickly build a Microsoft .NET application
•   A new referenced assemblies browser that allows browsing of Microsoft .NET Framework classes
•   Additional editor functionality
•   Ability to call external tools easily from within EiffelStudio

Availability:

The new release of EiffelStudio has begun shipping to Eiffel Softwares existing customers, and is available immediately via the companys website, www.eiffel.com. Onsite training and consulting are also available from the company by inquiring at sales@eiffel.com.

Eiffel Software (a division of ISE) is the world leader in Eiffel pure object-oriented programming tools. Founded in 1985, Eiffel Software produces proven professional tools and component libraries for business-critical and enterprise software developments. Eiffel Softwares products enable their customers to output more and higher-quality software in less time than with any other development tools available. Its users span the globe, in industries ranging from large financial institutions, to technology manufacturing, to government and defense contractors, to health care providers and more.

Contact: Bill Navickas, Director of Marketing, +1-805-685-1006 X101, billn@eiffel.com.

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