Open Source Blog

The two headed blogging machine of Dave Rosenberg at OSDL and Matt Asay at Alfresco both agree that JBoss is about to be snapped up, but can't agree on the acquirer. Matt goes for his former employer, Novell while Dave opts for Red Hat.

It could be either, frankly, but the more logical choice would be Novell. The company already has a strong relationship with JBoss, having ditched its exteNd Application Server in favour of JBoss AS in August 2004. In comparison, Red Hat has previously opted for ObjectWeb's JOnAS project, which is the basis for its own Red Hat Application Server.

That said, Red Hat has been talking up its intention to focus on developers. "“Now that the platform has proven itself we need to help them [developers] by providing tools to help them develop new projects,” said Todd Barr, director of product marketing for applications.

Meanwhile Novell has highlighted GroupWise as an area for investment via acquisition. The company also has cash to spend - cash and equivalents of $845.1m at last count before it began its share repurchase, as well as short term investments of $840.5m. Red Hat had cash of $267.6m at the end of its most recent quarter, as well as investments of $537.3m.

Novell has also been encouraged by investors to make more open source acquisitions, and has already responded to suggestions that it should cut costs and explore the sale of its Celerant management consulting business.

So, all things considered I'd plump for Novell if I had to guess which of these two would make the move for JBoss, but then I picked the Grand National winner but I didn't bother placing a bet. Make of that what you will.

************UPDATE************ Oh dear! Red Hat *is* buying JBoss, which probably explains why I didn't put any money on the National. The logic of Novell buying it instead remains though, so I'm leaving the posting as was.