Rise and Fall
Mar 5th, 2008 by sharps
If you work in the IT / software industry and unless you’ve been shipwrecked on a deserted island for the last 5 years you have probably followed the rise of JBoss. I have tracked them very closely as a competitor. Founded in 2001; JBoss proved the commercial Open Source model, disrupted the incumbents in an aggressively contested market and provided great entertainment.
When Red Hat acquired JBoss in 2006 - it seemed like a good fit. Red Hat we’re similarly successful in proving that Commercial and Open Source can be used in the same sentence; did its bit (along with the rest of the Linux community) to disrupt incumbents. But what happened next was unexpected to some but rather predictable; JBoss lost it’s Mojo.
Why was this predictable ? Well JBoss (like any other successful startups) worked it’s exit strategy really well - they raised the volume on their marketing efforts; leveraged the personality cult that built up around some of it’s key staffers (Marc Fleury, Bill Burke, Gavin King, to mention a few). Basically - they sold when they we’re at the top of their game (and I’m talking about perception here). Post acquisition - integration takes it’s toll; people leave, productivity takes a hit and most importantly - things go deathly quiet - the buzz that made JBoss such an attractive acquisition to it’s suitors died off. Maintaining the kind of pre-acquisition momentum just isn’t a priority post acquisition - certainly compared to the hard work of integrating one organization into another.
If you’ve been in this industry for any amount of time - I’m sure you’ve seen this scenario play out before - it’s very common - too many examples to point to. Bucking the trend and maintaining momentum post acquisition is tough and there are too few examples to point to; more’s the pity.
So, did all the good people leave JBoss ? Nope - probably not (though some did); did the technology suddenly become uncompetitive ? Nope. Did the competition seize the moment ? Maybe - GlassFish has certainly done it’s best to fill the vacuum. But fundamentally, I agree with Matt Assay - I’m sure JBoss is still healthy and active; with the caveat that they really need to pick up the momentum this year. For another perspective (and one I don’t necessarily agree with) - ZDNet’s Dana Blankenhorn & Paula Rooney have written the acquisition off as a failure - though they do make an interesting, cautionary point about acquiring Open Source companies in general.
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