Mainsoft, which enables developers to leverage Microsoft Windows development skills to build applications for other platforms, on Monday is introducing updates to development products for Java, Linux, and Unix, adding support for Microsoft's Visual Studio 2008 IDE.

Mainsoft for Java EE, Version 2.5, is a Visual Studio-based software suite with a cross-compilation engine allowing C# and Visual Basic developers to write ASP.Net AJAX applications and run them on Java EE platforms. These platforms include IBM WebSphere Portal and Application Server, Lotus Expeditor and Notes, Tomcat, and any standards-compliant Java EE server.

In addition to Visual Studio 2008 support, Version 2.5 adds capabilities for C# 3.0 and Visual Basic 9 language features.

Version 5.2 of Mainsoft for Unix and Linux enables C++ developers to build enterprise applications using Visual Studio 2008 and deploy them on 21 Unix and Linux platforms. The upgrade adds support for HP-UX 11i v2 and v3 on HP Integrity Servers with Intel Itanium 4-bit processors. Also supported are Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 for x86_64 and Suse Linux Enterprise Server 10 for x86. HP-UX 11v3 on HP 9000 servers with PA-RISC processors are supported as well. Solaris is supported on SPARC, AMD Opteron, and Intel architectures.

Mainsoft estimates there are more than 1 million users running Windows software on Java EE, Unix, or Linux because of its products.

"Mainsoft has invested more than 150 man years in the development, testing and performance optimization of our cross-platform product suite," said Yaacov Cohen, president and CEO of Mainsoft, in a statement released by the company.

The two products are available Monday. Mainsoft for Unix and Linux pricing starts at US$12,500 for four development seats. Mainsoft for Java enterprise edition pricing starts at $5,000 per CPU for the Tomcat server. A free, open source version of Mainsoft for Java EE, called Grasshopper 2.5, is available but lacks the full breadth of platform support offered in Mainsoft for Java EE. It is limited to Tomcat.

Visual Studio 2008 was released last November.