Red Hat Gives Java Developers Choice

SAN FRANCISCO -- Red Hat has expanded its offerings to give customers value, choice and flexibility with its set of new Java application platform products.

In a dueling press conference, which was held at the same time as Sun Microsystems' keynote during its CommunityOne event just down the street at the Moscone Center here, Red Hat announced the expansion of its application server offerings to include workload specific solutions designed to provide increased flexibility and choice for enterprise customers. Red Hat held its event at the Marriott in downtown San Francisco, while Sun kicked off its day-long JavaOne preview event only steps away.

Indeed, executing on its JBoss Open Choice strategy, the JBoss Enterprise Middleware portfolio now includes solutions for all of the common Java application workloads; from simple web applications, to light and rich Java applications, to Java Enterprise Edition (EE) based applications. Moreover, JBoss platforms support a variety of popular programming models including Spring Framework, Seam and Google Web Toolkit. With this expansion, Red Hat now has one of the most comprehensive Java application server portfolios in the industry.

“In this challenging economic environment, customers are looking for high value alternatives to costly, bloated and complex software. Our enterprise customers are demanding flexible, standards-based solutions that match more closely with the way they're starting to build and deploy Java applications,” said Craig Muzilla, vice president, middleware, Red Hat. “The solution set that we are delivering today, as the first in a series of expansions planned under our JBoss Open Choice strategy, addresses this market shift.”

Red Hat has taken a leadership role in redefining the enterprise Java market, with the goal of being the first company with a comprehensive open source middleware portfolio. Now more than ever, companies are moving away from a “one size fits all” approach in favor of more flexible, workload specific application servers that support a variety of programming models and APIs, Red Hat officials said.

With these expanded offerings, Red Hat now offers a full suite of Java application solutions that provide a simple, standard and flexible alternative to more complex and costly proprietary middleware that are often restricted to single APIs and programming models. Red Hat's next generation Java platforms are designed to meet market demands; as IT budgets shrink and customers are looking to innovate to maintain their competitive advantage, they are relying on lighter weight application architectures and a variety of new and innovative programming models and approaches, the company said.

"We've experienced the benefits of JBoss Enterprise Middleware first hand through reduced costs and higher staff productivity. As we look at our expanded use of open source, Red Hat's strategy is a perfect fit for the application workloads we require,” said Ravi Simhambhatla, director of architecture, Virgin America.