JRules 5.1 also includes enhancements to ILOG’s execution server that ease development on J2 Standard/Enterprise Edition using a single API and also supports IBM’s latest WebSphere 6.0 application server. JRules now also includes ILOG’s Business Rules Studio 2.1 offering, which it says is also validated by IBM Rational Application Developer 6 and Architect 6 products. The Studio also integrates with the Eclipse 3 Java tool framework.

The announcement was made at the JavaOne Developers conference in San Francisco this week.

Arguably Paris-based ILOG is playing catch up with arch rules rival Fair Isaac Corp, which says it has supported both multiple development environments for some time now. Fair Isaac boasts that its Blaze Advisor rules management software is the first rules engine to support Java, .NET and Cobol deployment of the same rules. Last November and in February this year, Fair Isaac beefed up .NET support. It also announced support for Cobol mainframe environments at the end of last year.

ILOG’s original strategy was to have separate platforms, said James Taylor, vice president of product marketing at Minneapolis-based Fair Isaac. This looks like they’ve decided to follow our lead instead.

Earlier this week Sun Microsystems Inc selected Blaze Advisor to power new enhancement in its risk analysis and management solution, dubbed Sun Preventive Services.