IBM and Novell have signed a bundling and support agreement that will bundle IBM"s open source WebSphere Application Server Community Edition (WAS CE) software with Novell"s SuSE Linux Enterprise Server. The partnership is an attack against JBoss, Red Hat"s suite of middleware applications including an application server. Both firms promised to assist customers in migrating off JBoss software.
Red Hat acquired JBoss for $420m last April. Based on the Apache Geronimo application server, WAS CE has logged more than one million distributions. Users looking for more advanced features are steered towards paid WebSphere products, which offer more advanced features.