MuleSource CEO: Mule 2.0 will kick enterprise butt
MuleSource has launched a major upgrade of its open source Enterprise Service Bus software that offers a new Eclipse integrated development environment, easier configuration and stronger Spring integration.
Mule 2.0 Community Edition was made available on April 1. The company’s commercial enterprise edition -- based on version 2.0 will ship later this year, said CEO and co-founder Dave Rosenberg. 
In an interview at the recent Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco, where MuleSource is based, Rosenberg said there are more than 3,000 commercial deployments of the open source SOA infrastructure software and that Mule 2.0 will enable even more enterprise penetration.
Mule 2.0, officially launched at MuleCon 2008 now being held, offers a new Eclipse-based IDE that gives customer visual drag-and-drop capabilities as well as XML schema and APIs that simplifies the task of configuring Mule. Version 2.0 also provides enhanced integration of the Spring framework for integrating and configuring Java applications, a faster transformation engine and enhanced web services support through support for Apache CXF.MuleSource counts Alfresco, Hyperic, SugarCRM, MySQL, Ingres and JasperSoft among its technology partners and Nortel, Nokia, CapGemini, Accenture, HSBC Canada, AOL, Walmart.com, EMC, Intel and Reuters among its customers.
He scoffed at the results of one informal OSBC survey, which ranked ESB as among the least likely proprietary technology categories in which open source will cause a major disruption. The market is led by the likes of Sonic, Iona and Cape Clear.
But he doesn't buy it. “We’re growing exponentially,” Rosenberg said of Mule, which along with Celtix, are the two top open source ESB offerings.
Perhaps even more significantly, MuleSource is getting ready to release in May a new SOA governance tool code-named “Galaxy” that offers a repository for services, an alternative to UDDI and RSS option for the enterprise, he noted.