Did you know that you can run Java Servlets with Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS) without any third-party products? All you need is plain old IIS and pure Java. Granted, you do need to use Microsoft's Java SDK for reasons that are explained in the article, but rest assured that your code will be free of any proprietary extensions and remain completely portable to other servlet engines. Go here to learn how.
The venerable Eclipse open source development environment started just an alternative to the Microsoft Visual Studio. It has since grown well beyond those boundaries by becoming an enterprise grade integrated development tool for all stages of the software development lifecycle including Web development, database engineering, and Business Intelligence (BI) reporting.
