JNBridge thinks it's licked the tricky problem of Java and .NET integration in the cloud and to prove it has released JNBridgePro 6.0 saying developers can now access both .NET- and Java-based cloud services and APIs from the ground or from cloud-based clients and develop cloud services and APIs that incorporate both Java- and .NET-based components.

JNBridgePro started on the ground connecting Java- and .NET Framework-based components and applications together with Eclipse and Visual Studio plug-ins that remove the complexities of cross-platform interoperability.

The company says JNBridgePro 6.0 takes that interoperability to the cloud so developers can build and distribute integrated applications in the same cloud - whether it's the same or different instances; between wholly different clouds; and ground-to-cloud or cloud-to-ground, where the interoperability is between a cloud instance and an application running on the ground.

It's talking, say, Amazon, Windows Azure, VMware and Google and points out that Azure, for one, is very .NET-centric. For instance, its Cloud Drive API isn't part of the Azure Tools for Java that Microsoft distributes. It was only designed to work when called from a cloud-based application. Well, JNBridge says it can get it to work from a desktop application using a proxy. And there's a lot more to deploying Java in Azure than Microsoft lets on in its documentation. JNBridge says it can help with that.

One of the tricks in supporting cloud-based interoperability was apparently to remove the requirement for persistent cloud-resident data, take the licensing information out of the registry and for JNBridge to write its own Internet-based activation scheme to impose licensing limits on elasticity.

CTO Wayne Citrin says, "JNBridge's vision of cloud interoperability is any object or API, on any platform, in any language, anywhere. JNBridgePro 6.0 will allow enterprises to build applications that access any API, or build rich APIs that are accessible to the other side, no matter where they reside, and whether or not they are services-enabled."

The widgetry, due out June 6 and said to be easier to work with than service buses and cloud-based object brokers, now comes as a single edition that includes all the functions of the older JNBridgePro SE and JNBridgePro EE editions available for a new annual license fee as well as the usual perpetual license. It supports licensing of virtual machines and cloud instances.

Pricing is expected to start at $2,000.

The proprietary Colorado company, started in 2001, claims upwards of 450 customer sites in 40 countries all with pretty large deployments and pretty familiar names like Time Warner Cable, IBM, Bosch and GE.

See (www.jnbridge.com/downloads.htm).