Consultancy and outsourcing provider Accenture has announced it will develop a new open-source tool designed to enable enterprises to build their own batch application programmes.

Spring Batch, which is being launched with the help of open-source software specialist Interface21, uses Java-based business logic to improve the efficiency of application processing, according to Accenture.

The initiative also builds on the Spring Framework programming model for enterprise Java, to support bulk transaction and data processing in a more efficient way, said Accenture’s program manager for Spring Batch, Scott Wintermute. He added that open source provides organisations with lower delivery and licence costs, and consistently higher-quality software than the one-off solutions that many enterprises develop in-house.

“Accenture’s goal is to provide a highly-scalable, easy-to-use, customisable, industry-accepted Batch architecture framework,” explained Wintermute.

Batch processing is used for transactions such as financial accruals, payment
generation and correspondence processing.

Also at the JavaOne event in San Francisco this week, Sun Microsystems has launched a preview release of its latest NetBeans Integrated Development Environment (IDE), which has been designed to extend support to dynamic scripting languages Ruby and JavaScript, and to offer improved code editing, inspection and navigation.

NetBeans 6.0 IDE needs only one installer, allowing developers to pick and choose the tools they need, according to the vendor.

“We’ve seen enormous momentum with the number of active users of NetBeans up by 92 percent year-on-year,” said Sun’s Rich Green. “It’s the premier platform for designing mobile applications and now the modular design will allow plug-ins for new languages.”