In the middle of June, Oracle released the NetBeans IDE 6.9 update providing new features for the IDE. At the time of the release, Oracle did not immediately respond to questions from InternetNews.com about the future of NetBeans.

Many in the Java community have since speculated about whether NetBeans should be folded into Eclipse. Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation, went so far as to tell InternetNews.com that in his view having NetBeans and Eclipse competing with each other in offering free IDEs for Java developers is not helping Java any longer.

As it turns out, Oracle intends on continuing to support both Eclipse and NetBeans.

"Both products are being actively developed and are both part of Oracle's Developer Tools strategy," an Oracle spokesperson told InternetNews.com.

For Eclipse, one of the key Oracle technologies is the Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse which is a free set of plug-ins for Eclipse IDE users. The spokesperson explained that the Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse is specifically aimed at supporting developers building applications on the Oracle stack. The Oracle stack includes products such as Oracle Database, Oracle Coherence, and Oracle WebLogic Server.