Eclipse casts a giant shadow in Silicon Valley

Source: SearchWebServices

Summary:
EclipseCon 2006, which opens today at the Santa Clara Convention Center, has come a long way in two years, both as an open source development platform and as a conference. Now Eclipse attracts a mix as widespread as applications vendors like Salesforce.com and PHP developers.

Two years ago, the first EclipseCon was held at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim, Calif., which seemed an odd venue as hardcore Java coders were invited to have breakfast with Goofy and technical sessions had Disney's greatest hits for background music. Last year, EclipseCon 2005 moved up to a hotel in the more sophisticated San Francisco Bay area and attendees were promised that they would not have to listen to "It's a Small World."

The Silicon Valley location for this week's event perhaps reflects the maturity of Eclipse. Having expanded from a hotel-based show to a convention center with three nearby hotels sold out, this year's version features 140 technical presentations in three days.

The sold out show will feature 45 software vendors hocking their wares, many of whom have become Eclipse members since the organization declared it's independence from its IBM parent in 2004.