JBoss, Inc. Delivers JBoss Application Server 4.0 to the Enterprise Market.

ATLANTA -- Now Certified J2EE-Compatible, JBoss 4.0 is a Safe Choice for Commercial Deployment; First Aspect Oriented System to Implement Enterprise-Class Services for Any Java Object

JBoss(R), Inc., the Professional Open Source company, today announced general availability of JBoss Application Server 4.0 for enterprise production deployment. JBoss AS 4.0, the company's flagship open source middleware offering, is the first open source application server to achieve compatibility certification for the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE(TM)) version 1.4 by passing the 23,000 tests of the Test Compatibility Kit. This next generation of the industry's most popular open source application server is also the first to implement aspect orientation (AO) for Java, bringing unprecedented productivity, performance and management capability to customers. JBoss AS 4.0 is immediately available under the business-friendly LGPL (Lesser General Public License) open source license.

"Open source is rapidly moving beyond Linux and the operating system into middleware. As a company at the forefront of this second generation of open source, JBoss is focused on building an entire open source middleware stack with JBoss AS as the foundation," said Marc Fleury, chairman and CEO of JBoss, Inc. "JBoss AS 4.0, the culmination of nearly three years of research in aspect orientation, showcases JBoss' ability to innovate ahead of the market and deliver a uniquely architected product that significantly enhances flexibility and combines the simplicity of standard Java with the power of the J2EE platform."

JBoss AS has been downloaded more than five million times and ranks first with Java developers and independent software vendors (ISVs). For the second straight year of their annual award for innovation, the editors of SD Times recognized JBoss AS as the top deployment platform. In a study by BZ Research, use of JBoss AS doubled from 13.9 percent in 2002 to 26.9 percent in 2003, with the highest rate of market-share growth among all app servers. Combining a robust yet flexible architecture with a no-cost open source software license and the full backing of superior technical support services from JBoss technical experts, JBoss AS has quickly become the safe choice among enterprises for their mission-critical applications.

"Our entire business has relied on JBoss AS for the past year and we have been extremely satisfied with the performance and reliability. The modularity of the architecture enabled us to pick and choose the services we needed and tighten integration with the applications running on top. JBoss AS has allowed us to scale both technically and economically," said Jamie Cash, Director of Technical Architecture, NLG, one of the nation's largest online and offline leisure travel companies. "Best of all, support for JBoss AS is delivered by JBoss product experts. We were early adopters, so it was critical that whenever we called we could immediately talk to someone who could help us. We have become great advocates of open source projects like JBoss AS that have evolved into best-of-class products."

Features & Benefits

JBoss AS 4.0 enables middleware providers to deliver greatly simplified programming models to developers without sacrificing service capabilities, including object persistence, caching, acidity, remoteness, transactions and security. Key features and benefits include:

--  Scalability. JBoss offers full clustering of any Java object,
        including EJB, JMS, HTTP and Plain Old Java Objects (POJOs).

    --  Performance. Based on their own internal benchmark tests,
        JBoss users have found that JBoss offers improved performance
        and superior server utilization over other leading J2EE
        application servers.

    --  Customizable footprint. A modular and elegant architecture
        built on a microkernel-based design leverages JMX extensions.
        The result is a lightweight component model that allows users
        to tailor the footprint to meet their specific needs.

    --  Services-oriented architecture. Services can be easily added
        or removed based on the specific needs of the user. All
        services are neatly packaged and fully hot-deployable. Users
        can also create and add their own services easily.

    --  Enterprise-class services for any Java object. Aspect-oriented
        framework allows users to deliver EJB-like functionality such
        as persistence and distributed transactional caching to any
        POJO.

    --  Application-level features, including no compilation, full
        security implementation and JAAS integration.

    --  Full standards support. JBoss AS 4.0 offers full support for
        J2EE 1.4.

    --  Valuable sum of parts. JBoss AS 4.0 comes integrated with
        other leading JBoss-federated open source products, all backed
        with support from JBoss, Inc.:

        --  Tomcat 5, the leading open source Web container. The
            integrated version offers additional value to the
            standalone product such as high performance, transactional
            HttpSession clustering over JBossCache.

        --  JBossCache, the first open source transactional,
            distributed cache for fine-grained Java objects.

        --  Hibernate 2.1, the popular ORM engine, which enables POJO
            persistence and a smooth transition to EJB3.

    --  Tools. JBossIDE provides additional convenience to developers,
        such as server lifecycle control, debugging, EJB packaging,
        deployment and AOP support.

Support & Services

JBoss, Inc. provides a full range of expert support services delivered by the experts behind the JBoss Application Server, including 24x7 Support, on-site and remote RightStart Support, public and on-site training and documentation. Support and services are also available through the company's extensive network of JBoss Authorized Service Partners (JASP), which includes leading ISVs like Computer Associates, HP, Novell and Unisys.

Availability

JBoss AS 4.0 is immediately available at http://www.jboss.com/downloads/index and is free to download and free to use regardless of the size of the production deployment. The LGPL also allows ISVs to embed and distribute JBoss AS free of charge.

About JBoss, Inc.

Through its Professional Open Source model, JBoss, Inc. is making open source a safe choice for the enterprise. The JBoss team of technical experts drives core development of freely distributed open source software products and stands behind them with 24x7 production support, development support, training, consulting and documentation. The company's federation of open source middleware now includes Tomcat, Hibernate, JGroups, JBossCache, Nukes on JBoss and the JBoss Application Server, the industry's fastest growing J2EE application server in use, with over five million downloads. Corporate Express, La Quinta and Nielsen Media Research, among others, rely on JBoss products for mission-critical enterprise applications. Partners who embed or bundle JBoss products and resell JBoss services include Computer Associates, HP, Novell and Unisys. JBoss has headquarters in Atlanta, Ga. and Neuchatel, Switzerland. For additional information, please visit www.jboss.com.

JBoss is a registered trademark of JBoss, Inc. Java and J2EE are registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc., in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks or registered trademarks herein are property of their respective owners.