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When the announcement crossed my desk that on May 4 Unisys was announcing a deeper partnership with JBoss to provide open source SOA it caught my eye and I asked for a briefing. Open source SOA from a stalwart mainframe company? Interesting to say the least.

UniSys announced that it has become a premier worldwide JBoss Authorized Service Partner (JASP). Unisys will provide expertise around JBoss product design, integration and implementation. Unisys has integrated the JBoss Application Server with the Unisys Communication Ensemble and the Unisys Media Ensemble, and is integrating the JBoss Application Server across the Unisys server line.

So how does a mainframe company make money on open source? The answer is services. In the early 90’s as distributed platforms started to usurp the mainframe’s power, Unisys focused on brining mainframe reliability and scalability to open system platforms, and they continue to focus on adding value to open source platforms. In fact, today 83% of Unisys’ business is in services. They have a methodology to help companies move toward SOA, wrapping mainframe functionality as Web services, and move to open source platforms. Unisys also offers technology, such as their server platforms, as management software such as Application Defender which scans all J2EE applications and identifies and patches security holes in them.

Unisys’ market is their top 500 clients world wide which account for 85% of revenue. Clearly Unisys has found a way to stay relevant with their customers. Now Unisys can boast of being a 1-stop shop for training, consulting, migration services, and support licenses for JBoss.

While it sounds to me like Unisys has found a niche for itself to stay relevant with its customers, it has left me wondering about the future of open source SOA. On one hand are the promised of lower software licenses. But how many vendors will you need to deal with? Can you get all the support you need to be successful with SOA? What will you need to be successful?

How many of you out there are now pursuing open source SOA solutions? I would be very interested in hearing your experiences.

Posted by bethgb at 10:40 AM in Vendor Briefings | Digg This | Add to del.icio.us