Borland Software Corporation (Nasdaq:BORL), a global leader for Software Delivery Optimization(TM), today announced that Mercy Ships(R) is using Borland(R) JBuilder(R) 2005 and Borland Together(R) 2005 to modernize its internal applications, manage the risks of technology change and simplify the delivery of software.

Mercy Ships uses a fleet of hospital ships to deliver free, world-class health care services to the poor. Since 1978, Mercy Ships has performed more than 2 million services that have impacted over 5.5 million people. In addition to providing operations such as cataract removal, cleft-lip, orthopedic and facial reconstruction surgeries, Mercy Ships also offers clinics and training in primary health care and has delivered more than $21 million in medical equipment and medicines.

Mercy Ships uses a fleet of hospital ships to deliver free, world-class health care services to the poor.

Supporting this large, global organization is a three-person IT staff and small team of dispersed volunteer developers, tasked with supporting day-to-day operations such as processing volunteer applications, managing the Mercy Ships website and supporting fundraising activities in over 16 countries.

Mercy Ships, like many charities, faces the challenge of delivering world-class services with limited resources. Recently, the Mercy Ships IT staff began the complex task of modernizing its IT architecture to take advantage of Web services and new open source systems, and upgrading their mission-critical applications to Java(R).

"We are very pleased to be working with an organization like Mercy Ships, and their IT team which is creating the infrastructure required to help bring hope and healing to the poor," said David Intersimone, chief evangelist and vice president of developer relations at Borland. "People don't often focus on the individuals and teams who enable this kind of charity work, or the impact that technology can have on these IT teams. We are happy Borland can play a role in helping Mercy Ships maximize their assets, and leverage new innovations in software to move the organization into the future."

Prior to employing JBuilder 2005, Mercy Ships was utilizing Informix(R) 4GL, a legacy development language with limited capabilities, for all of their application development needs. Moving forward, Mercy Ships needed a solution to allow their small, dispersed development team to effortlessly translate existing applications to Java and take advantage of J2EE(TM) without the complexity or costs that can be associated with these advanced systems.

JBuilder has enabled Mercy Ships to develop key programs essential to their daily operations. For example, JBuilder has allowed Mercy Ships to accelerate the development of PartnerShip, the distributed database application that manages all key donor relationships. By converting this application to Java, Mercy Ships has increased its functionality making it easier for volunteers around the world to access and use the program. JBuilder has also been used to create the Mercy Ships Security System. With the rise in crime and danger throughout the world, this system aids in ensuring their crew's security and safety.

"Because our volunteer development team is located in different sites worldwide, it is imperative we employ products that have a short learning-curve, offer a good deal of automation and help us to better document projects and requirements," said Kelvin Burton, chief technology officer, Mercy Ships. "We have already had a lot of success using JBuilder and Together to modernize our systems. They've saved our team both time and effort, and with the news that Borland will increase their support for the open Eclipse framework, we are even more pleased to be using Borland's solutions."

Mercy Ships is preparing to employ a number of open source plug-ins to the Eclipse framework, potentially Hibernate Tools, JNDI Browser, Hibernate Database, Parasoft Jtest and SQLExplorer. Borland's platform neutrality and the company's use of Eclipse as one of two primary frameworks for its application lifecycle management solutions makes it easy for Mercy Ships to maintain the investments it has made in JBuilder and Together and take advantage of future innovations from Eclipse and the open source community.

JBuilder 2005 and Together 2005, Borland's leading integrated development environment and modeling solution for Java, offer a number of new capabilities designed to make software delivery more efficient, predictable and successful.

For more information on JBuilder 2005 and Together 2005, please visit: www.borland.com/products