Industry News
Sun Microsystems Announces Technology Preview of Open Source Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server
New GlassFish Partner Initiative to Provide Developers Access to Expanding GlassFish Ecosystem of More Than 100 SIs and ISVs
May. 7, 2008 04:00 PM
Sun Microsystems and the GlassFish community announced the
availability of the technology preview release of the Sun GlassFish Enterprise
Server version 3 and new Sun GlassFish Communications Server. Sun also
announced a new GlassFish Partner initiative designed to provide developers,
Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and System Integrators (SIs) with access to
a large number of frameworks and applications running on the GlassFish
application server.
GlassFish is an open source application server with more
than 7 million downloads since its first release in May 2005. The new release
simplifies Web 2.0-style application development with a new modular
architecture that developers can use with specific versions of Java technology
optimized for their applications and a new update center will notify users
about component updates, enabling on-demand downloads. The technology preview
release gives developers the opportunity to try their applications on the
modular GlassFish architecture and provide feedback to the community before the
specification is finalized.
Partner Initiative for Sun Partner Advantage Program
To foster collaboration among developers, ISVs, hosting
providers and SIs, Sun also announced a new marketing initiative for Sun
Partner Advantage Program members designed to connect GlassFish solution
providers to the GlassFish user and developer community. Participants will be
showcased in a partner Web site, and on GlassFish community pages, blogs and
other communication vehicles.
Many companies, including ICEsoft, Terracotta and Zeus
Technology, have already joined this new initiative. "With millions of
developers downloading GlassFish, the GlassFish Partner initiative helps Zeus
to showcase ZXTM, our extensible application delivery solution, to this
important open source community," said Steve Webb, vice president of
Strategic Accounts, Zeus Technology. "Additionally, the program gives us
access to new business models, expanded markets and increased opportunities for
sales engagements, which are particularly important as we develop our ongoing
relationship with Sun’s partners and customers."
Unlimited Pricing for GlassFish Enterprise Server Use
Sun introduced GlassFish Unlimited pricing enabling
enterprises to purchase the rights of unlimited GlassFish Enterprise Server use
for a flat fee based on the number of employees in the organization. Combined
with MySQL Unlimited pricing, the new pricing model makes it easier for
customers to purchase two of the leading open source products.
Sun GlassFish Communications Server
Sun also announced the new GlassFish Communications Server
based on Project SailFin, a GlassFish project to build a Session Initiation
Protocol (SIP) communications server. Project SailFin is the result of
collaboration between Sun and Ericsson that will give developers access to the
telecommunications technologies they need to develop next-generation instant
messaging, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and shared multimedia
applications on the Web. The GlassFish Communications Server is scheduled to be
available after the Java Community Process finalizes the JSR 289 specification,
which is expected in Q3 2008.
"Customers of GlassFish Communications Server will be
able to leverage the high performance, standards-based Java EE and SIP
convergence platform to build enterprise applications with integrated
communications capabilities," said Karen Tegan Padir, vice president of
engineering, Software Infrastructure, Sun Microsystems. "With this
telecommunications-grade, open source communications server available on all
major OS platforms, service providers can expect accelerated rates of adoption
for their Next-Generation Networks (NGNs) based on IP Multimedia Subsystems
(IMS) to offer value-added services and help drive new revenue
opportunities."
In related news, Ericsson and Sun announced a joint
competition designed to spark innovation among developers and support the
creation of next-generation Internet and mobile services. The international
competition targets the 7 million members of the Java technology developer community
worldwide and will run for a 5-month period with winners to be announced in
October 2008. For more information go to http://java.sun.com/javaee/community/campaigns/sun_ericsson-052008/welco...
For more information on Sun Microsystems contact Cate Hanley, Cate.Hanley@bitepr.com at Bite Communications.