IBM Open Source-Based Application Server Growing Nearly Three Times Faster Than JBoss

CGIDir
Thursday, November 23, 2006; 03:31 AM

A new research report found that WebSphere Application Server (WAS) Community Edition -- IBM's open source application server software based on Apache Geronimo -- is gaining share nearly three times as fast as rival JBoss.

According to Evans Data Corporation, in a single year WebSphere Application Server Community Edition gained 16 points of market share with Eclipse developers, versus only a 6.6 share gain for JBoss.

The second Annual Eclipse Global Enterprise Report from Evans Data Corporation surveyed software developers on their attitudes, awareness, perceptions and concerns of developers regarding Eclipse and Eclipse-related products. Eclipse is an open source, platform independent framework for developing software applications.

"WebSphere Application Server Community Edition enables customers and Business Partners to tap the low cost of entry of open source technology to quickly develop and deploy applications," said Robert LeBlanc, general manager, IBM WebSphere. "With more than 250,000 downloads in less than six months, WAS Community Edition is gaining momentum with customers of all sizes and industries."

WAS Community Edition, which is free to download and use, pre-integrates Apache Tomcat with several of the most commonly used open source components, such as web services, security, authentication, messaging and web tier clustering. IBM began to offer customers solutions based on Apache Geronimo in May of 2005 when it acquired Gluecode Software. It launched WAS Community Edition in November of 2005.

Earlier this month, IBM announced that more than 600 independent software vendors (ISVs) and systems integrators have joined IBM's WebSphere Application Server Community Edition partner initiative since it was launched just six months ago. As a direct result of that initiative, more than 200 ISVs have developed and introduced new software applications that support WAS Community Edition, while more than 250,000 copies of WAS Community Edition have been downloaded and over 300,000 CDs distributed, mainly in China, India, Russia and Thailand.

Linux distributors have also embraced WAS Community Edition. Mandriva, particularly popular in Latin America, bundles WAS Community Edition with Mandriva Corporate Server. RedFlag Linux in China agreed to distribute WAS Community Edition with both RedFlag Desktop and RedFlag Server. Additionally, Novell's Integrated Stack for SuSE Linux (ISSLE) includes WAS Community Edition and IBM DB2 Express-c.

For additional information and to download WebSphere Application Server Community Edition, http://www.ibm.com/software/webservers/appserv/community/