Red Hat, JBoss kick open source up a notch

Red Hat's plan to acquire leading Java application server vendor JBoss probably will result in more corporate interest in open source software, because the two companies could provide customers with the first one-stop shop for a community-developed application platform.

The challenge will be in how well Red Hat integrates JBoss' Java-based middleware suite into its products and how well it maintains existing relationships with third-party vendors such as IBM, which are focused on competing Java application servers, analysts say.

For the most part, however, industry observers agree that the move is a smart one and should be good news for customers looking for a reliable provider of open source software.

"This is excellent news for me as a Red Hat customer," says Jim Klein, director of information services and technology at the Saugus Union School district in California. "Having a certified, Red Hat-supported JBoss will not only further legitimize JBoss - and perhaps Red Hat - as a viable enterprise-class alternative, but likely will continue to improve perceptions of open source as a whole in the minds of corporate IT."

It's that kind of thinking that JBoss executives hoped for as they made the decision to sell the company to Red Hat. The two companies announced last week that they have entered into an agreement in which Red Hat will acquire JBoss for $350 million, plus $70 million should JBoss meet certain performance metrics. The acquisition should be completed by the end of May.

Analysts say the acquisition is Red Hat's most aggressive step yet in its effort to move up the stack beyond its Linux operating system roots, but they point out that several hurdles remain.

One of those is to integrate the JBoss software successfully into the Red Hat Linux distribution, while maintaining the vibrant JBoss development community that has pushed the open source application server to the top of the middleware market.

"JBoss has to maintain the community. If Red Hat doesn't allow it to maintain the community, then the deal is a failure," says George Weiss, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner.

Red Hat says JBoss will operate as a semi-independent entity. That should be good news for those running its middleware on non-Red Hat operating systems, especially Windows. JBoss, which inked a deal with Microsoft last year to improve interoperability, says about half its users run its products on Windows.