“The acquisition of open source middleware vendor JBoss by Red
Hat, announced last month, will see two of the biggest names in
enterprise open source software joining forces, but as the after
effects of the announcement showed, it could also have
ramifications that will impact IBM, Oracle, Novell and many more
software heavyweights.“Red Hat is paying $350m upfront for JBoss, 40% in cash and 60%
in shares, and will pay an additional $70m if the company meets
unspecified performance targets. Red Hat’s chairman and chief
executive Matthew Szulik said the acquisition was based on feedback
from customers, partners, and developers that an integrated open
source platform was the way forward…”