JBoss Announces New Certified Partner Program to Support Enterprise Deployments; Continues to Expand JBoss Ecosystem and Mature Professional Open Source Market.

ATLANTA -- JBoss, Inc., the Professional Open Source company, today introduced the JBoss(R) Certified Partner Program to better meet increasing global demand for the JBoss Enterprise Middleware System (JEMS(TM)) in mission critical deployments. With market-leading products like JBoss Application Server, Hibernate and Apache Tomcat, JEMS is reaching mass adoption, particularly in the high-end, large-scale production environments of enterprises in the financial services, government, telco and travel sectors. Certified partners will provide third-party technologies, integration, migration and services to support this expanding JBoss ecosystem.

"Open source is gaining momentum in the middleware market, with the JBoss Enterprise Middleware System at the heart of a multi-billion dollar ecosystem," said Tom Cooper, vice president of worldwide channels, JBoss, Inc. "Our enterprise customers are requiring tools, applications and skilled personnel to support their JBoss projects. We have designed the JBoss Certified Partner Program to provide the partner community with expertise, training and certification to support JBoss enterprise customers."

Through the JBoss Certified Partner Program, JBoss will help partners accelerate to the open source market, certify their applications or tools with the JEMS environment, train their personnel and optimize service delivery to the growing number of enterprises shifting from proprietary middleware to a JBoss-based open source middleware strategy. Partners gain access to the JBoss Network(TM), the standard mechanism for JBoss to deliver services to customers, and receive support and training from the core technical experts behind JEMS. The partnership also entitles members to direct indemnification from JBoss and reseller opportunities.

The JBoss Certified Partner program offers four types of partnerships:

--JBoss Certified Solution Partners - This program supports ISVs and platform vendors that want to certify and optimize their solutions to run on JEMS. Current JBoss Certified Solution Partners include Ascential Software, an IBM company; ATG; Elastic Path; Jamcracker; JasperSoft Corporation; JDA Software Group, Inc.; Teradata, a division of NCR Corporation; OpenLogic; Open Sky Software; Quest Software; and Versata.

--JBoss Certified Technology Partners - This program provides support to companies that embed or bundle JBoss technologies with their products. In addition to having JBoss-certified products, technology partners can deliver JBoss support services to their end customers. Current JBoss Certified Technology Partners include Cincom Systems, Computer Associates, HP, IONA, KANA, Kronos(R) Incorporated, Novell, Seagull Software, SpikeSource and Voyence.

--JBoss Certified System Integrators - This program provides professional certification for personnel and product support to consulting, integration and migration companies. Enterprise customers can look to JBoss Certified Systems Integrator partners to provide knowledgeable and skilled personnel for their projects. Current JBoss Certified System Integrators include Amentra, Capgemini, CIGNEX Technologies, HP, New Particles Corporation, Novell, NRI, SoftPro and Tripod Technologies.

--JBoss Authorized Service Partners (JASPs) - This program establishes strategic relationships with companies that want to resell JBoss-branded support and training services to their customers. The program is targeted specifically for companies that have an established support infrastructure and a strong competence in J2EE. Since JASPs deliver support services directly to JBoss customers, JASPs must meet stringent requirements based on customer satisfaction, technology competency and the number of JBoss trained and certified personnel on staff. Current JASP partners that deliver JBoss services include HP and Novell.

For more information about the JBoss Certified Partner Program and other partner programs, visit http://www.jboss.com/partners/index.

JBoss Has Broad Partner Support

JBoss offers enterprises the best of both worlds - the zero-cost software licenses and code-base access common in open source and the accountability and support services expected of traditional software vendors. Partners benefit from this "best of both worlds" approach as well, gaining competitive advantage over those who choose to remain locked to expensive traditional middleware platforms. Additionally, JBoss partners never need to worry about JBoss, Inc. entering the vertical middleware, application or composite application markets to compete with them.

"CA's strong partnership with JBoss continues to provide significant business value to enterprise customers all over the world," said Sam Greenblatt, senior vice president and senior technical advisor at Computer Associates. "JEMS certification of Ingres, for example, has enabled CA customers to build highly robust open source middleware architectures that allow them to quickly respond to changing business needs and reduce their total cost of technology ownership. CA will continue to work closely with JBoss to deliver an even broader range of high-value information infrastructure solutions to the global marketplace."

"Our focus on delivering technology solutions that drive better, faster and more sustainable results for our clients dictates that we offer the widest and most innovative range of technologies today," said Henk Kolk, alliance manager for Capgemini Nederland B.V. "Open source consistently ranks at the top as a technology to evaluate. As one of the top brands in open source, JBoss is a natural choice as a technology partner. We anticipate this to be a beneficial partnership for both parties."

"Quest Software recognizes the positive impact that open source has on the software business and we are proud to be one of the first to support JBoss with our application management products," said Larry Humphries, vice president, application management solutions, Quest Software. "As we certify Quest products for JBoss environments, enterprise customers will be empowered with the robustness and dependability they need to manage service levels within their organizations."

About JBoss, Inc.

Through its Professional Open Source model, JBoss, Inc. is making open source a safe choice for the enterprise. JBoss provides the resources, technology direction, core development and support services that enable popular open source projects to scale into enterprise-class open source software. These projects include JBoss Application Server, Hibernate, JBoss jBPM, JBoss Portal, JBoss Eclipse IDE and Apache Tomcat, which are core components of the JBoss Enterprise Middleware System (JEMS). Companies like Corporate Express, La Quinta and Nielsen Media Research rely on JEMS for mission-critical enterprise applications. Partners embedding JEMS and reselling 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 and JEMS and JBoss Network are trademarks of JBoss, Inc. in the United States and other countries. J2EE is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks or registered trademarks herein are property of their respective owners.