Red Hat doubles JBoss funding

Open-source specialist Red Hat claims that it is doubling the amount of research and development investment in JBoss — the open-source application server company it acquired last June.

Speaking at a briefing to announce the launch of the latest version of Red Hat's Linux platform RHEL 5, the company's vice president of enterprise solutions, Tim Yeaton, said that from the beginning of the fiscal year research investment in JBoss would be doubled.

More details will emerge later this week according to Yeaton, but Red Hat has definite plans to develop the JBoss platform over the next year, he said. "The first wave of funding around JBoss went into the field, improving sales and support. But now the second wave will concentrate on the actual technology," he said.

JBoss specialises in an open-source Java application server, which is used for running custom business applications written in Java, and a more substantial offering for Java developers. JBoss is also assembling a suite of open-source Java middleware, including a portal, messaging and transaction server.

Yeaton claimed that the decision to plough more funding into JBoss was not an attempt to boost internal and external perceptions of the organisation after the departure of JBoss' founder Marc Fleury last month. "In the end Marc's decision to leave was based on personal reasons," said Yeaton.

Fleury's move was no surprise to industry insiders. When he went on paternity leave in early December, he sent a note to close colleagues that said, in part: "I am increasingly experiencing diminishing returns on my emotional and professional investments at Red Hat... Working with all of you at JBoss has been a pleasure and probably the apex of my short career."

Red Hat's JBoss acquisition was completed in June 2006, providing competition with products from partners such as IBM and Oracle.

CNET News.com's Steven Shankland contributed to this report