JBoss Group Launches Channel Program

Solution providers, ISVs and systems vendors now can sign up for the JBoss Authorized Service Partner Program, said Bob Bickel, vice president of strategy and corporate development for the JBoss Group, Atlanta.

There are three partner levels, silver, gold and platinum. Silver partners pay a $5,000 fee to join, and silver partners pay a $10,000 fee. For partners to join at a platinum level, they must pay $20,000, Bickel said.

Each of the levels also require partners to meet a certain level of yearly revenue expectations ranging from $25,000 to $50,000 on the low end to $300,000 or more for the largest partners, he added.

While the JBoss Group does not sell its open-source JBoss application server, which is available for free download, it does sell support and services for the product. Through the channel program, partners can either resell those services or let JBoss provide services for them, receiving margins on services provided, Bickel said.

Partners in the program either resell JBoss services entirely, allowing JBoss engineers to handle support services calls, or handle the "first and/or second line of support" bringing in the JBoss services team only for core application-server issues, Bickel said.

If JBoss Group handles all the services for a partner, the partner receives less margin on those services than if the partner handles some of the support on its own and brings JBoss in only for support on the actual architecture of the product, he added.

Over the past two years, JBoss has gained traction as an alternative to commercial J2EE-compatible application servers from BEA Systems and IBM. There have been about four million downloads of the product. Many developers prefer the flexibility of developing applications on JBoss and then deploying them on BEA or IBM.

However, Bickel said customers are increasingly deploying JBoss in commercial solutions. Recent customers are Wells Fargo and Western Union, he said.

In response to this growing use among corporations,whose senior management prefer to use products they know are fully compatible with industry standards -JBoss recently opted to pay Sun Microsystems "a truckload of money" for a J2EE compatibility license, Bickel said. The contract is nearing final approval.

Previously, JBoss was built according to the public J2EE specification, but was not branded "J2EE compatible" because the group had not paid Sun for the license and the test compatibility kit (TCK). An application server must pass the tests in the TCK before using the "J2EE compatible" brand.

Bickel said several JBoss partners helped the company pay the costs of the license, which has been slightly modified so the JBoss Group can continue to offer a free, open-source application server fully compatible with J2EE.

"Basically what will happen is once we're certified, certain versions of the application server [available for download] on the Web site will be [J2EE] certified, and some builds will not be certified," Bickel said.

Sun has often been criticized for its rigid J2EE licensing policies and steep fees. However, the company allowed for limited open-source licensing of J2EE two years ago, responding to industry demand.