IBM and Avada Software announced a new original equipment
manufacturer (OEM) agreement to join forces to capture a larger piece of the
growing open source application server market. Under the agreement, Avada
Software will deliver and support WebSphere Application Server Community
Edition (WAS CE) as part of its messaging management solutions. IBM is also
announcing that Nexxar Group Inc., a money transfer company, is using WAS CE to
stay compliant with new money transfers laws and regulations in the U.S. and
Europe.
IBM is also announcing that Nexxar Group, a money
transfer company, is using WAS CE to stay compliant with new money transfers
laws and regulations in the U.S. and Europe.
WAS CE, which is free to download and use, is pre-integrated
with Apache Tomcat and several most commonly used open source components, such
as web services, security, authentication, messaging, and web tier clustering.
WAS CE provides a host of technologies that simplifies the
development of applications and services, thus dramatically improving developer
productivity. WAS CE and related subscription support can also help customers
begin to deploy a service oriented architecture (SOA) by providing the flexibility
to reuse existing services and expanded access to core applications. Avada's
software is built to take advantage of a customer's existing infrastructure.
"More companies, especially SMBs, are turning to open
source application servers as a flexible, affordable and reliable alternative
to traditional commercial software offerings," said Robert Sordillo, C.T.O
of Avada Software. "Avada and IBM are working together to help businesses
break down the barriers to SOA by providing simple access to existing applications,
services, and important data."
By entering into the agreement, Avada will provide their
customers with an open source-based application server backed by IBM's world
class global support. IBM and Avada will team on joint marketing and sales campaigns
targeting customers around the world.
Customers See Benefits of WAS CE
Nexxar Group, a money transfer company, is the latest
IBM customer to use WAS CE to provide the right balance of simplicity,
functionality and total cost of ownership. Nexxar utilizes a state-of-the-art
technology platform and operates worldwide service hubs to provide money
transfer, bill pay, check cashing and money order services for individuals as
well as international transaction processing services for global financial
institutions.
New compliance rules across Europe and the United States
have put additional pressure on money transfer companies. In addition, Nexxar
recently acquired six companies and needed to consolidate IT systems and
business processes. The company is now using WAS CE as an inexpensive, yet
solid application server platform for developing, implementing and rolling out
existing and new applications.
"WAS CE is an ideal Java EE application server for
start-up businesses or projects with limited start-up budget in need of
extending the reach of their web-based applications to environments where the
network connection is not 100 percent reliable," said Luc Vanlathem, lead
architect, Nexxar Group, Inc. "WAS CE has enabled us to reuse our money
transfer application as both a branch server application and also a stand-alone
application with built in host connection monitoring, store and forward
capabilities."
Using WAS CE, Nexxar has established a foundation for
delivering its most critical IT process -- money transactions -- as responsive,
extensible services. Nexxar is confident that WAS CE will allow them to grow
their business while providing the security and reliability that is required in
the financial world.
Open Standards and SOA
WAS CE Version 2.0, which was announced last year, helps
developers reduce the complexity of application development by pre-integrating
the most common services for building applications. WAS CE 2.0 allows
customers, partners and developers to rapidly develop and deploy applications
using new Java EE 5 standards.
"We're seeing our partners and customers using WAS CE
in new and innovative ways," said Tom Rosamilia, general manager,
Application and Integration Middleware, IBM. "Avada Software and Nexxar
are great examples of companies taking advantage of open source technologies to
embrace an alternative business model. We also see WAS CE as a great entry
point to the rest of the WebSphere portfolio."
WAS CE, based on Apache Geronimo, provides a flexible
foundation for developing and deploying Java applications. Technical support is
offered through an annual subscription. IBM also offers its partners free
sales, marketing and technical support to use WAS Community Edition. More than
400 partners currently offer solutions on IBM's open source application server.
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