Advanced JasperForge brings new social features to developers and organizations working with the world’s most widely used business intelligence software

SAN FRANCISCO, May 12, 2009 —Jaspersoft, provider of the world’s most widely used business intelligence (BI) software, today announced that JasperForge has reached full production capabilities and has been upgraded to incorporate new Web 2.0 features that allow community members to extract, display, and share data that is specifically customized for them.

New features include an Ajax-based look and feel with search; updated enhancement and bug tracker; wiki and blog improvements; Google Gadgets; RSS support throughout the site; and real-time Activity Monitoring, among others.

The JasperForge Beta was announced in July 2008 in partnership with Essentia Corporation, which provides the underlying collaboration platform for the Forge. JasperForge is a next-generation community platform for facilitating software development and social exchanges among developers and organizations.  With more than 90,000 registered community members and over 350 projects, the Forge is Jaspersoft’s engagement platform for facilitating the evolving requirements of the world’s largest open source BI community.

“We are pleased to see our partnership with Essentia coming to fruition in this next generation of tools,” said Brian Gentile, CEO of Jaspersoft. “Last July, we introduced the beta of a first-ever community platform, with a vision and roadmap for what that platform ultimately needed to be. Today, with the involvement of our community and a significant collaborative development effort, we’re seeing that vision become reality.”

Open source communities are changing and the Forges that support them need to evolve as well. No longer are Forges simply platforms for collaborating on software development. Business managers, developers and other third parties all contribute to building open source software and represent diverse needs for a collaboration platform. JasperForge has been built to address these requirements. 

JasperForge employs a social networking approach that makes it easier than ever for users to join or start a project, interact with the community on Jaspersoft technology, and move project development and deployment forward. The new platform uses distinct collaborative development, communications, and social networking tools that enable issue tracking, version control, community discussions, wikis, news, blogs, mailing lists, and more.

In addition to a number of Jaspersoft-specific features and capabilities, the new JasperForge incorporates many of EssentiaESP’s latest updates announced in March 2009. Specific new features available in today’s JasperForge include:

• Wiki and blog improvements. Enhanced formatting options allow projects and members to deliver richer content to the JasperForge community.
• Ajax-based look and feel with search. The new user experience and enhanced search makes it easier to find and use project information.
• Enhancement and bug tracker. The Mantis tracker adds new capabilities for the community, including community voting to highlight popular requests and issues.
• Google Gadgets. JasperForge members can extract information on their projects and present that activity on their personal iGoogle pages and anywhere else that Google gadgets are supported.
• RSS support. The new JasperForge allows for multiple RSS feeds that provide real-time updates of custom information at a site and project level.
• Activity Monitoring. This real-time monitor presents a routinely updated list of activities taking place on JasperForge.

About JasperSoft Corporation
Jaspersoft's open source business intelligence suite is the world's most widely used BI software, with more than 8 million total downloads worldwide and more than 10,000 commercial customers in 96 countries. The company's Jaspersoft Business Intelligence Suite provides a web-based, open and modular approach that address the next generation business intelligence needs of the enterprise. Jaspersoft's software is rapidly updated by a community of more than 90,000 registered members working on more than 350 projects, which represents the world's largest business intelligence community.More information is available at www.jaspersoft.com and www.jasperforge.org.

###

All names referred to are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.