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MySQL and JBoss cozy up

The companies form a partnership to jointly sell and market products to large corporate customers interested in expanding their use of open-source software.

Martin LaMonica Former Staff writer, CNET News
Martin LaMonica is a senior writer covering green tech and cutting-edge technologies. He joined CNET in 2002 to cover enterprise IT and Web development and was previously executive editor of IT publication InfoWorld.
Martin LaMonica
2 min read
Open-source software companies JBoss Group and MySQL are forming a partnership to jointly sell and market products to large corporate customers interested in expanding their use of open-source software.

The two companies announced their agreement Wednesday at the LinuxWorld conference in New York. Both companies also are announcing this week enhancements to their respective product lines.


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The partnership between the two companies involves closer technical coordination and expanded efforts to market JBoss' Java server software and the MySQL database.

Linux has become a widely used alternative to Unix and Windows Server operating systems. JBoss and MySQL are intent on promoting the use of open-source software in Java server software and databases.

The two companies develop free software and charge customers for consulting services and support. JBoss calls this business model "professional open source."

"We're starting to see larger customers making more strategic decisions around utilizing professional open source," said Bob Bickel, vice president of strategy and corporate development at JBoss. The goal of the alliance is to target top information technology executives who are considering wider use of open-source software in their corporations, he added.

Software company Red Hat also is expanding its product line beyond Linux, planning to sell services based on an open-source Java application server later this year.

JBoss and MySQL already have worked on joint sales calls, and executives from both companies communicate regularly, Bickel said.

On a technical level, the partnership should mean easier installation and up-to-date versions of tools that rely on the other company's software, company executives said. JBoss also plans to optimize its Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE)-based software to work with MaxDB, the SAP-developed open-source database that MySQL now offers.

Both JBoss and MySQL are enjoying rapid growth and have made inroads into the commercial software market, in large part by appealing to software developers.

As previously reported, JBoss has expanded the software that it provides services for to include other Java-based open-source projects. On Tuesday, the company said it is now offering support for Nukes, an open-source content management system.

Meanwhile, MySQL on Wednesday announced a partnership with Zend to improve the integration between Zend's development tools and the MySQL database. MySQL also will introduce a graphical tool to simplify database administration, which will be offered for free or for an ongoing service fee, said Zack Urlocker, vice president of marketing at MySQL.