Says Shaun Connolly, “From a JBoss perspective, we have and will continue to drive innovation in Java. JBoss is an active participant in the Java Community Process (JCP). We hold a seat on the Executive Committee for the Standard/Enterprise Edition (SE/EE) and have made significant contributions specifications such as EJB 3.0 (JSR-220) and Java Business Integration (JSR-208). Our alliance with Microsoft simply recognizes the reality that enterprise IT shops are heterogeneous in the platforms they use and that these customers require that Microsoft and JBoss work together to ensure they obtain maximum value from their existing investments.”

Speaking about the two companies’ joint efforts on Security Interoperability, Connolly said that their efforts will focus on interoperability of Active Directory with JEMS-based applications, specifically in the areas of integrated sign on and federated identity.

By teaming up with Microsoft, it certainly looks as if JBoss is positioning Microsoft as its preferred Operating System vendor of choice. Or is Microsoft positioning JBoss as its Enterprise Java platform vendor of choice?

Here’s what the two companies have to say:

Shaun Connolly of JBoss says, “Since the JEMS platform is 100% Java, it is deployed across a wide range of operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Linux, Solaris, etc. Microsoft Windows is used, for either development or production use, within almost half of the JBoss user base.”

According to Bill Hilf (pictured), director of platform technology strategy at Microsoft – “JBoss is experiencing tremendous growth and is a driving force of consolidation of the Java space. So it makes sense to work with them on interoperability and optimizing for the Windows Server platform."  The message is out there loud and clear. JBoss and Microsoft are not promoting each other, nor are they making plans to move into each other’s development models. The sole focus of the alliance is the two companies’ mutual customers. The partnership therefore is tightly focused on addressing the needs of that large user community and boosting customer satisfaction levels in these environments.

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