The Middleware Company Launches .Net Online Community

TheServerSide.Net went live Tuesday as an online resource where various .Net developers--whether they work for vendors, solution providers, end users or independently--can read exclusive content and news, and engage in discussions about deploying Microsoft .Net in the enterprise, said Tyler Jewell, COO at the Mountain View, Calif.-based company.

The new community also provides in-depth technical information, such as design patterns and case studies, that will be helpful to developers, he said.

The Middleware Company began as a training company for enterprise Java developers in 1998. In 2001, the company launched its first online community, TheServerSide.com, as a resource for developers of Java and J2EE-based applications so it could generate leads for its training business.

In the past six months, the company has been undergoing a makeover under a new management team that includes Salil Deshpande as CEO and Jewell--who most recently was with BEA Systems--as COO.

The company now is split down the middle between its ServerSide communities and an independent consulting and research firm. Companies, particularly ISVs, hire that consulting and research side to provide technical marketing services, architecture audits and analysis, and performance and scalability services, Jewell said. The consulting and research arm is an evolution of The Middleware Co's Java developer training business, he added.

TheServerSide.Net community represents the first time The Middleware Co. is formally embracing .Net developers with a resource tailored to their needs, Jewell said. In revamping the company's business plan, he said the new executive team realized it would have to support both Java and .Net developer communities, since these are the two primary platforms for enterprise deployment going forward.

"Our vision is to service the needs of all developers in the middleware industry and to do that through communities and research," Jewell said. "Enterprise [development] issues target everyone and any number of technologies can solve these. As architecture experts, we need to focus our energies on all of these different technologies."

While Microsoft does not have direct content on TheServerSide.Net, it is a sponsor of the site, Jewell said.

In a statement, Scott Guthrie, ASP.Net architect and co-founder of the ASP.Net team at Microsoft, voiced his support for the new community: "I like the idea of taking the same excitement, the same community, and the same resources [of TheServerSide.com] and bringing it to the enterprise .Net community."

Sponsorships from ISVs, which advertise and offer content on the TheServerSide communities, represent about 50 percent of The Middleware Company's revenue. The other half comes from the company's consulting and analysis services, Jewell said. ISV clients that purchase consulting and research from the company include Microsoft, IBM and BEA.

While The Middleware Co. is privately operated and run, it is a subsidiary of Veritas, which is also another of the company's research and consulting clients.

Jewell said Veritas has "no daily involvement with [The Middleware Co.] activities" and is committed to keeping the subsidiary neutral as an independent entity. "[Veritas is] very supportive of what we do," he said. "Our [consulting] relationship with them is the same as it is with other customers. [Veritas] treats us like a separate company."