JBoss Introduces New Projects to Simplify Enterprise Java; Builds on JBoss Technology Leadership and Innovation to Enable Seamless, Standards-Based Development.

ATLANTA -- JBoss(R), Inc., the Professional Open Source company, today announced new open source projects that support the company's focus on simplifying Enterprise Java for developers. The company unveiled JBoss Seam, a new framework for building Enterprise Java applications, and JBoss Microcontainer, a lightweight container that can be used to manage, configure and deploy plain old Java objects (POJOs).

These critical new projects build on JBoss' history of technology leadership and innovation. Hibernate (www.hibernate.org), for example, joined JBoss in October 2003 and reached its one millionth download this month. This milestone is a testament to Hibernate's role in galvanizing object/relational mapping (ORM) technology to maturity, its popularity as the market leader in its category and its influence on the architecture, design and philosophy of the Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) 3.0 specification. Hibernate founder Gavin King is now bringing his vision to JBoss Seam, which introduces a uniform component model for building Enterprise Java applications through declarative, contextual, application state management.

"JBoss Seam represents a major reconsideration and simplification of the way Enterprise Java applications are developed," said Shaun Connolly, vice president of product management, JBoss, Inc. "As the founder of Hibernate and a key architect of the EJB 3.0 specification, Gavin King has a proven track record for technology vision and ability to execute. By introducing JBoss Seam and JBoss Microcontainer, JBoss continues to move toward our goal of making Enterprise Java development seamless and easy for all developers."

JBoss Seam 1.0 Beta

The JBoss Seam framework provides one of the simplest, most elegant ways to write a complex Web application in Java. The beta release of JBoss Seam 1.0 is now available for developers to download and evaluate at www.jboss.com/products/seam. This community release works with Hibernate 3.0, and the final release will work with JBoss Application Server and any application server supporting EJB 3.0. JBoss Seam:

--Eliminates unnecessary programming - JBoss Seam solves a critical gap in the Java Enterprise Edition (EE) 5 architecture by integrating two of its most important new features, EJB 3.0 and JavaServer Faces (JSF), into a single component model. This eliminates the extra programming, or glue code, needed to make the two components work together. As a result, developers spend less time programming and more time solving business problems.

--Extends declarative state management - JBoss Seam applies the concept of declarative state management to application state. Currently, Java EE applications implement state management manually, an approach that results in bugs and memory leaks when applications fail to clean up session attributes. JBoss Seam eliminates almost entirely this class of bugs. Declarative state management is possible because of the rich context model defined by JBoss Seam.

--Uses EJBs everywhere - EJB 3.0 has changed the notion of EJBs as coarse-grained, heavy-weight objects by introducing fine-grained annotations. In JBoss Seam, everything is an EJB. As such, there is no distinction between presentation tier components and business logic components in JBoss Seam. Even session beans, for example, can be used as JSF action listeners.

--Enables process-driven applications - JBoss Seam integrates transparent business process management via JBoss jBPM, making it easier than ever to implement complex workflows. Future versions of JBoss Seam will allow for the definition of presentation-tier conversation flows by the same means.

JBoss Microcontainer 1.0

The JBoss Microcontainer provides a lightweight and robust container for managing the deployment and configuration of POJOs. JBoss Microcontainer supports the JBoss vision of enabling middleware services to be mixed, matched, embedded and used on demand in a wide range of environments and configurations. Besides playing a critical role within JBoss Enterprise Middleware System (JEMS(TM)) products, JBoss Microcontainer can support deployment configurations within unit tests, standalone Java applications and third-party Java application servers. Moreover, JBoss Seam and EJB 3.0 use JBoss Microcontainer to bootstrap their services for use in third-party application servers as well as non-application-server environments.

JBoss Microcontainer represents a refactoring of the JBoss JMX Microkernel and will provide the next-generation foundation for JEMS. JBoss Application Server 5.0, projected for availability in 2006, will use the JBoss Microcontainer as its scalable POJO-based foundation, further improving its ability to provide its services for high-end, clustered enterprise environments and lower-end, resource restricted environments, such as networked appliances. JBoss Microcontainer 1.0 is now available for developers to download at www.jboss.com/products/jbossmc.

About JBoss, Inc.

Through its Professional Open Source model, JBoss, Inc. delivers enterprise support services for the JBoss Enterprise Middleware System (JEMS) and provides resources and core development for the open source projects included in the JEMS stack. Companies and public sector agencies that rely on JBoss to support their critical JEMS-based applications include Continental Airlines, the French Inland Revenue Service, Starwood Hotels and the U.S. Navy. Certified partners supporting JEMS and reselling JBoss Subscription services include Dell, HP, NEC, Novell and Unisys. JBoss maintains headquarters in Atlanta, Ga. and Neuchatel, Switzerland. For additional information, please visit www.jboss.com.

JBoss and JEMS are registered trademarks or trademarks of JBoss, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks or registered trademarks herein are property of their respective owners.