And from the perspective of JBoss:
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is being announced? » Red Hat and JBoss have signed a definitive agreement whereby Red Hat will acquire JBoss. The acquisition will join together two of the leading open source vendors to create the defining Open Source development and deployment Platform for the Enterprise. Together, the companies will focus and providing an end-to-end open source solution for next generation IT and application architectures, including SOA. Both companies are dedicated to accelerating the adoption of open source, building a vibrant ecosystem, and, most importantly, delivering low cost, high value solutions for the customer.
What is the timeline for the acquisition? » We expect the government regulation approvals necessary for closing to occur within the next 60-90 days. Until closing, both companies will operate as independent companies. Details on future plans will be shared after the closing.
What is the rationale behind Red Hat acquiring JBoss? » Red Hat has built a successful and profitable business, delivering value to customers by helping them unlock the value of open source (#1 in value, CIO Insight 2 years running). Through a unique subscription model, Red Hat has helped customers shift from closed, proprietary systems to open, standards-based systems. Specifically, the migration from Unix-to-Linux has helped customers lower their deployment costs, while giving them new flexibility to scale their IT infrastructures in new and different ways.
But the promise and possibilities of open source go beyond just deployment. Open source has the possibility to alter the entire cycle of IT projects, from development, from testing and certification and into deployment. And as IT infrastructures become more complex and loosely coupled (with web services and service-oriented architectures), and as development teams become more global and distributed, the innovation and transparency of open source software and, and the principles by which open communities grow, are creating new sources of economic value for forward-thinking IT organizations.
Red Hat is seeking to redefine the technology landscape by helping unlock the value of open source and open communities for customers. The acquisition of JBoss is the next major step toward achieving this goal.
What is the rationale behind JBoss choosing Red Hat? » The goal of JBoss has always been to promote and accelerate the adoption of Open Source and the Professional Open Source Model. Although JBoss was experiencing tremendous growth as an independent company, there was an even greater opportunity to join forces with a larger and more established open source provider that could further expedite the growth of the channel, expand the services offering and coverage, and expedite acceptance of JBoss technology as an enterprise standard. Together, JBoss and Red Hat will form the industry’s largest independent open source provider that provides additional customer value through wider open source technology choice, trusted services from a single provider, a large and vibrant developer community, and an expansive partner eco-system.
What is Red Hat's plan to integrate JBoss? » As part of its commitment to open source, Red Hat is focused on ensuring continuity and growth for the JBoss solutions portfolio, customers and community. Red Hat will also reach out to the wider Open Source community to encourage continued and active participation in the success of JBoss open source projects.
How will customers benefit from this acquisition? » Customers will ultimately benefit from the business agility provided by the powerful combination of the RHEL platform and the JBoss JEMS Suite and from the expanded low cost, high value solutions these companies will create. Specifically:
* Increased confidence from one open source platform for the enterprise, spanning from bare metal to applications
* The simplicity of a single open source platform for reducing cost and improving efficiencies across the entire application lifecycle from design and development through testing to production of mission-critical applications.
* More choices for building an open source architecture via a large and vibrant eco-system of solution and service partners
* Global support coverage from a trusted service provider that includes improved manageability via an online service network
* Additional long-term stability for the combined company’s products and services
* A low cost on-ramp to Service Oriented Architectures (SOA)
How will partners benefit? » Red Hat and JBoss both expect this acquisition to increase the overall demand for open source and services. This union creates the logical target platform for ISVs and OEMs to bundle and/or embed and increases the market size for compatible and certified products and services for Red Hat and JBoss enterprise customers. Together, Red Hat, JBoss, and our eco-system of certified partners will continue to provide exceptional customer value and lower the cost of IT for our joint enterprise customers.
How will the open source community benefit? » Both Red Hat and JBoss are dedicated to preserving the integrity of open source. This union will bring together two of the market and brand leaders in open source and create the industry's first comprehensive open source platform for the enterprise.
The combined companies will continue to invest in development of new open source technologies while reaching out to the wider open source community as a whole to encourage continued and active participation in the success of combined open source projects.
What are Red Hat's Go-to-Market plans for JBoss? » The immediate release plans for JBoss products and technologies will be unchanged by the Red Hat acquisition. Once the deal is completed, Red Hat will provide technology roadmap and integration plans.
Will the JBoss code base be merged with Red Hat’s Linux distribution? » Any and all product development and packaging announcements will occur after closing.
Will Red Hat continue to offer the JBoss Subscription? » Yes. Red Hat and JBoss have extremely synergistic subscription-based business models and will continue to act as agents of change in evolving the business landscape of IT computing and delivering consistent customer value.
Will JBoss continue to support multiple operating systems? Will Red Hat continue to support multiple middleware platforms? » Yes. The infrastructure required to support a Service Oriented Architecture for customers must support heterogeneous platforms. It is therefore important to our customers that we provide an open platform that can support customer’s heterogeneous environments. Red Hat will continue to support multiple middleware platforms and the JBoss Enterprise Middleware Suite (JEMS) will continue to operate on multiple operating platforms.
Will JBoss World be going away? » JBoss World Las Vegas will be held as planned. In fact, we expect our JBoss World user’s conference to draw even more attendees than previously estimated and we very much welcome your involvement in this global user conference event. Visit www.jbossworld.com for more details.