

IBM RATIONAL APPLICATION DEVELOPER WEBSPHERE SOFTWARE
During the timeframe between the availability of WebSphere Application Server V6.1 and Rational Application Developer V7.0 / Rational Software Architect V7.0, WebSphere customers who need to build and deploy applications to WebSphere Application Server V6.1 should use the Application Server Toolkit. The gap between these product releases is intentional and is necessary to meet customer requirements for the WebSphere-specific functionality in Rational Application Developer and Rational Software Architect.

Rational is currently planning to ship Rational Application Developer and Rational Software Architect V7.0 in the second half of 2006. WebSphere Application Server V6.1 is announced here. In 2006, both WebSphere and Rational plan to release major updates that are designed to be compatible with one another. The Application Server Toolkit contains a sub-set of Rational Application Developer/Rational Software Architect functionality since it is based on Eclipse and the Eclipse Web Tools Project. As standard, all WebSphere Application Server configurations ship with the Application Server Toolkit, which is primarily used for assembling and deploying applications to WebSphere Application Server. Rational Application Developer and Rational Software Architect are IBM tools that can help you design and develop applications for WebSphere Application Server. IBM is targeting to make the following components and configurations of IBM WebSphere Application Server V6.1 and related tools available within the next twelve months: United States Software Announcement 206-076
