Red Hat Accelerates JBoss Partner Initiative

Linux put Red Hat on the map. But growing sales of JBoss open source middleware should make Red Hat a $1 billion company within the next few years. With that goal in mind, Red Hat is launching “partner-only” JBoss roadmap briefings the week of July 20. Here’s the scoop from The VAR Guy.

Loyal readers of this blog know Red Hat’s JBoss middleware business is growing faster than Red Hat’s traditional Linux middleware business. And Red Hat in December 2008 landed at the top of The Open Source 50, which tracks the most promising open source partner programs.

Next up, Red Hat’s partner-only briefings for the JBoss open source partner program will offer:

Details about Red Hat’s July 2009 JBoss partner briefings should surface online, The VAR Guy hears.

Hungry Rivals

Despite ongoing success, Red Hat can’t rest on its laurels. The reason: Novell is rebuilding its partner program (with help from Arrow Enterprise Computing Solutions) and striving to recruit Red Hat customers to Novell’s SUSE Linux. Plus, Canonical is investing in training and certification for Ubuntu Linux partners.

Plus, not all Red Hat partners are happy, The VAR Guy hears. Some partners worry that Red Hat is playing favorites in the JBoss partner channel, driving many leads to Amentra — a JBoss consulting firm that Red Hat acquired in March 2008. In previous conversations with The VAR Guy, Red Hat insiders have vowed a level playing field for JBoss partners.

To be sure, Red Hat has been pushing deeper into the channel. The company has successfully trained nearly 40,000 professionals on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and recently co-launched the Open Source Channel Alliance (OSCA) to train 15,000 Synnex VARs on open source applications and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

And don’t forget: Red Hat has successfully recruited Oracle and BEA middleware veterans to the JBoss team. Overall, The VAR Guy thinks Red Hat is building a $600 million partner channel. And much of that new revenue will come from JBoss ISVs (independent software vendors) and partners.

Follow The VAR Guy via RSS; Facebook; Identi.ca; Twitter; and via his Newsletter; Webcasts and Resource Center.