April 22, 2008 6:06 AM PDT

Behr colors outside the lines with JBoss Application Server

Posted by Matt Asay

Behr, the paint manufacturer, was looking for a way to upgrade its Behr.com website from IBM's Websphere to make it more cost-efficient, flexible, and improve reliability and response times. Instead of opting for more of the same with another proprietary solution, Behr chose Red Hat's JBoss Application Server.

The result?

Behr has already reaped significant benefits from implementing JBoss Enterprise Application Platform. For starters, the JBoss technology is completely compliant with industry standards, and doesn't lock Behr into a particular vendor's products. "That's the nice thing about open source - it's open, it's consistent, and you know it's going to work," said [Behr]....

Response time for visitors of the website has dramatically improved, making for a better customer experience. And bringing a new node into the cluster, which took a full day under WebSphere, takes just an hour with JBoss. "With WebSphere, you had about six different processes to complete, and then you crossed your fingers and hoped it worked," said Stevenson. "JBoss practically installs itself."...

Behr is so pleased with JBoss that it is planning to expand its use of the middleware technology...."With JBoss, everything about managing and supporting our application is simple and straightforward," said [Behr]. "Cost, time, complexity - everything related to administration has decreased. JBoss just works. That's the bottom line for us."

This is the sort of thing leading open-source vendors hear all the time. It's what happens when you invite customers to innovate alongside the vendor, rather than turning them into mute consumers of others' technology.

Unfortunately, IBM's policy of burying open source within proprietary applications doesn't provide this benefit to customers. It's only possible when open source is the interface to the customer, not a complement buried in a proprietary product and proprietary business model.

Just ask Behr.