BEA Expands Alliance With Red Hat

BEA Systems Red Hat Server

Red Hat, Raleigh, N.C., also will distribute BEA's JRockit Java Virtual Machine (JVM) on its Red Hat Network, its distribution network for products, said Bob Griswold, vice president and general manager of BEA's Java Runtime products group. JRockit will be the only third-party software available on the network, he added.

Griswold said BEA's expanded alliance with Red Hat is part of its overall midmarket strategy to offer its WebLogic line--J2EE-based products that include application, portal and integration servers--on low-cost hardware based on Intel chips.

"We want our customers to have the highest ROI systems," said Griswold. "A part of that is reducing their investments on hardware. Linux is a great OS at a lower price point. Together, Red Hat, Intel and BEA will continue to have the highest price-performance for Java application infrastructure."

BEA, San Jose, Calif., currently supports all leading Linux distributions, said Griswold. While he would not comment on whether BEA would support the distribution of Linux that BEA hardware partner Sun Microsystems unveiled Monday, he said that since Sun is BEA's "closest partner," BEA "will do everything to support anything [Sun does."

BEA traditionally has relied on Sun's Unix-based Solaris as its main hardware platform for WebLogic. But in the past year, BEA has become less dependent on Solaris by striking up key alliances other vendors.

In July 2001, BEA unveiled a partnership with Intel to broaden its WebLogic deployment base. Then, earlier this year at its eWorld conference in February, BEA unveiled its acquisition of JRockit.

And most recently in June, BEA cozied up to Sun rival Hewlett-Packard in a deal to bundle WebLogic products on multiple HP platforms, including both Unix and Intel-based servers.