Red Hat has purchased Amentra, an IT consulting firm with open source expertise, to sell its JBoss Java infrastructure to enterprises as the basis for service-oriented architectures.

Amentra, a privately held systems integrator that specializes in SOA and business process management (BPM), will continue business as usual as an independent company owned by Red Hat. The specific financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Amentra's 140 employees will continue to work out of their current offices in Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia; Charlotte, N.C.; Tampa, Fla.; and Richmond, Va.

Amentra is a certified JBoss systems integrator that has a solid reputation among enterprises; ExxonMobil, Pfizer and Merck are among its clients. The company also has been recognized for its expertise in providing open source and SOA services by research firm Gartner.

Red Hat said it tapped Amentra to support what it calls its "Enterprise Acceleration" initiative, which is aimed at providing the JBoss open-source middleware in the enterprise for SOA and BPM deployments. When the plan -- which includes sales and marketing support and new JBoss technology testing centers -- was unveiled last month, Red Hat Middleware Business Vice President Craig Muzilla said Red Hat hopes JBoss will play a major role in 50 percent of all enterprise software infrastructure deployments by 2015.

Red Hat purchased JBoss in April 2006 and, like its Linux operating system, now has two versions of the software -- a community ".org" version that is free for everyone to use and an enterprise version that has fees and maintenance tied to it. The company is hoping to use JBoss as a springboard to become successful beyond its enterprise Linux business and quiet critics who claim the company can't make a multiproduct portfolio work.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.