IBM Boosts Open Source Strategy With OEM Agreement

IBM Boosts Open Source Strategy With OEM Agreement


IBM and Boston, Mass.-based Avada Software entered into an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) agreement for IBM's WebSphere Application Server Community Edition (WAS CE) in an effort to capture more of the open source community. Avada will deliver and support WAS CE as part of its messaging management solutions.

"This is a positive arrangement for both companies," says WebSphere Open Source Development and Strategy Director Brenda Haynes, noting the two companies share complimentary interests. "This really allows us both to reach new markets and provide a right-sized total cost of ownership for the customer."

WAS CE, is free to download and use and is pre-integrated with Apache Tomcat and other commonly used open source components like Web services, security, and Web tier clustering. Avada can now provide customers with an open source-based application server backed by IBM's support. Under the terms of the deal, IBM and Avada will team on a joint marketing and sales campaign to target new customers worldwide.

Avada COO Peter D'Agosta says those marketing efforts include a series of jointly sponsored Webinars and regional trade events that have not yet been finalized. D'Agosta says both companies benefit from the partnership. "It allows us to do things quicker because we don't have to wait for the customer to build an infrastructure to lay our software on top of," he says, adding they get a credibility boost from IBM's logo on their install DVD. "And now, IBM is into a market where they have a leading-edge technology and they didn't have to put any R&D money in."

Haynes says WAS-CE reached 2 million downloads by December 2007 and expects the demand for open source software will continue. "We think there's been great interest in people who are looking for an open source "based application server," she says. "This really fills and important part of our WebSphere family."


1 Comment:

Rarely do I get to have as much fun as this morning. I decided to download and install the new IBM WebSphere Application Server Community Edition V2.0.0.1 to one of our blade servers. The install was flawless and the instructions were exceptional. Before starting the server and deploying the XAware 5.0 WAR, I updated the startup.bat file with my JRE_HOME=%JRE_5_HOME% and added the XAWARE_HOME environment variable to the file, geronimo.bat. (set JAVA_OPTS=%JAVA_OPTS% "-Dxaware.home=%XAWARE_HOME%").

I started the server, started the administrative console, and deployed the XAware 5.0 WAR on the IBM WebSphere Application Server Community Edition. Using a standalone XAware Designer and the Package Assembly Tool, I deployed a XAR package to the CE Server and tested the service. Excellent! The application server was up and running the XAware 5.0 asset in less than two hours. The application server is very light-weight, but feature rich. There were no issues with deploying the XAware 5.0 application. This was easy to verify using the test tab from the Package Assembly Tool. I really like the functionality allowing administration of the server using the Eclipse framework.

I would say nice! Good work IBM! We love those Open Source Projects.


Jeff Peters
www.xaware.org >