Daily Spin: JBoss Finds Open Source Home

News Analysis

JBoss Finds Open Source Home

Is it fair to say that open source software will be the prime driver of next-generation service oriented architectures?

That certainly seems to be the case this week as Red Hat Inc. gobbled up open-source application server vendor JBoss Inc. in a deal valued at $350 million .

The deal cements Red Hat's open-source credibility while also moving them into a highly competitive new market space -- integration middleware. The acquisition also leaves larger vendors in the space -- including initial JBoss suitor Oracle but also IBM, Sun and others -- scrambling in the aftermath to make sure they have their own open source stories in place.

Worth noting:- The deal immediately puts Red Hat head-to-head with much larger rivals -- and in some case Linux distro partners -- IBM, Sun, Oracle, BEA and others. Red Hat's value prop is the ability to deliver a high-quality, relatively low-price J2EE stack to help IT take the cost out of application development and deployment. What it lacks is the high-end enterprise chops and consulting capabilities of vendors like IBM to manage high-availability, transaction-intensive applications. But the middle of the market may very well be the true J2EE suite spot.

- Mainstream integration vendors certainly aren't going to give up the SOA ship. In NWc's recent review of Enterprise Service Bus solution, a key component in next-generation SOA architectures, commercial vendors like IBM, Oracle and BEA all had strong offerings.

- The JBoss deal shines new light on open source J2EE server alternatives, including Jonas and Geronimo. Open source servers like Apache and Tomcat have gained wide adoption. Will their J2EE open source brethren meet with the same success?

- Is Red Hat a good home for JBoss? NWC tech editor Lori MacVittie cautions that "the memory of Fedora [Red Hat's Linux front-end] and early treatment of the distribution by Red Hat may well leave many wisely treading carefully until Red Hat reveals its 'roadmap and integration plans' for JBoss."

Read more about Red Hat's acquisition of JBoss

NWC's Take on the News

Here's what we think of today's breaking news. Read the story and leave your own comment. Let's see if we agree ; >

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