News
ILOG Courts .NET Developers
ILOG, a business-rules management system solutions and tools provider, launches a resource portal aimed at .NET developers.
The move comes several months after launching a similar portal for users of the company's Java-based JRules business rules management system (BRMS). In addition to adding support for .NET developers, the company revamped and re-imagined ILOG BRMS Resource, a portal to support developers using the COBOL and C++ version of its BRMS.
"It was the logical next step," says Chris Berg, ILOG's product marketing manager. "Our systems run in Java, .NET and mainframe COBOL environments. So it made sense to provide a place where all the members of our BRMS community could find support and best practices for their chosen platforms, but also interact with others."
Spotlight on Business Rules
Headquartered in Paris, ILOG is best known for its BRMS solutions and tools, but the company also makes supply chain management applications, optimization software and visualization components. ILOG expects the launch of the new resource center to throw a spotlight on business rules in general, while improving the company's ability to interact with its users, Berg says.
The .NET developer portal (ilog.com/dev/brms/rfdn) includes a quick-start guide for the .NET BRMS and interactive forums -- all aimed at helping .NET developers to better understand the business rules development paradigm and the ILOG toolset.
To kick-start the new Microsoft-centric section of ILOG BRMS Resource Center, the company is offering a six-month free trial of Rules for .NET 3.0, the latest version. The company has worked hard to make its BRMS Microsoft-friendly.
The 3.0 version is integrated with Office 2007, which allows rules authoring, editing and management from within Word and Excel via a new "Rules" tab. This version is integrated with Visual Studio, Windows Communication Foundation (Microsoft's programming model for building service-oriented applications) and BizTalk Server. It also supports deployment to SharePoint.
ILOG offered a six-month free trial of the JRules product when it launched the developer site last fall. Since that launch, that portal has drawn more than 1,800 members, the company says. The free trial version of Rules for .NET 3.0 is available now.
About the Author
John K. Waters is the editor in chief of a number of Converge360.com sites, with a focus on high-end development, AI and future tech. He's been writing about cutting-edge technologies and culture of Silicon Valley for more than two decades, and he's written more than a dozen books. He also co-scripted the documentary film Silicon Valley: A 100 Year Renaissance, which aired on PBS. He can be reached at [email protected].