Hi,
I think the "Maven 2 Exec Plugin" offers the capabilities that you are looking for. In summary, "The plugin provides 2 goals to make execution of system and Java programs."
The plugin's two goals are:
exec::exec - execute programs and Java programs in a separate process
exec::java - execute Java programs in the same VM
The project's homepage and documentation can be found at:
http://mojo.codehaus.org/exec-maven-plugin/ The plugin exists in the central maven repository. Links to the versions of the plugin in the central repo (including dependency information) can be found here:
http://www.jarvana.com/jarvana/search?search_type=project&project=exec-maven-plugin Hope that helps,
Edwin