IBM and Avada Software announced a new original equipment manufacturer (OEM) agreement to join forces to capture a larger piece of the growing open source application server market. Under the agreement, Avada Software will deliver and support WebSphere Application Server Community Edition (WAS CE) as part of its messaging management solutions. IBM is also announcing that Nexxar Group Inc., a money transfer company, is using WAS CE to stay compliant with new money transfers laws and regulations in the U.S. and Europe.

IBM is also announcing that Nexxar Group, a money transfer company, is using WAS CE to stay compliant with new money transfers laws and regulations in the U.S. and Europe.

WAS CE, which is free to download and use, is pre-integrated with Apache Tomcat and several most commonly used open source components, such as web services, security, authentication, messaging, and web tier clustering.

WAS CE provides a host of technologies that simplifies the development of applications and services, thus dramatically improving developer productivity. WAS CE and related subscription support can also help customers begin to deploy a service oriented architecture (SOA) by providing the flexibility to reuse existing services and expanded access to core applications. Avada's software is built to take advantage of a customer's existing infrastructure.

"More companies, especially SMBs, are turning to open source application servers as a flexible, affordable and reliable alternative to traditional commercial software offerings," said Robert Sordillo, C.T.O of Avada Software. "Avada and IBM are working together to help businesses break down the barriers to SOA by providing simple access to existing applications, services, and important data."

By entering into the agreement, Avada will provide their customers with an open source-based application server backed by IBM's world class global support. IBM and Avada will team on joint marketing and sales campaigns targeting customers around the world.

Customers See Benefits of WAS CE
Nexxar Group, a money transfer company, is the latest IBM customer to use WAS CE to provide the right balance of simplicity, functionality and total cost of ownership. Nexxar utilizes a state-of-the-art technology platform and operates worldwide service hubs to provide money transfer, bill pay, check cashing and money order services for individuals as well as international transaction processing services for global financial institutions.

New compliance rules across Europe and the United States have put additional pressure on money transfer companies. In addition, Nexxar recently acquired six companies and needed to consolidate IT systems and business processes. The company is now using WAS CE as an inexpensive, yet solid application server platform for developing, implementing and rolling out existing and new applications.

"WAS CE is an ideal Java EE application server for start-up businesses or projects with limited start-up budget in need of extending the reach of their web-based applications to environments where the network connection is not 100 percent reliable," said Luc Vanlathem, lead architect, Nexxar Group, Inc. "WAS CE has enabled us to reuse our money transfer application as both a branch server application and also a stand-alone application with built in host connection monitoring, store and forward capabilities."

Using WAS CE, Nexxar has established a foundation for delivering its most critical IT process -- money transactions -- as responsive, extensible services. Nexxar is confident that WAS CE will allow them to grow their business while providing the security and reliability that is required in the financial world.

Open Standards and SOA
WAS CE Version 2.0, which was announced last year, helps developers reduce the complexity of application development by pre-integrating the most common services for building applications. WAS CE 2.0 allows customers, partners and developers to rapidly develop and deploy applications using new Java EE 5 standards.

"We're seeing our partners and customers using WAS CE in new and innovative ways," said Tom Rosamilia, general manager, Application and Integration Middleware, IBM. "Avada Software and Nexxar are great examples of companies taking advantage of open source technologies to embrace an alternative business model. We also see WAS CE as a great entry point to the rest of the WebSphere portfolio."

WAS CE, based on Apache Geronimo, provides a flexible foundation for developing and deploying Java applications. Technical support is offered through an annual subscription. IBM also offers its partners free sales, marketing and technical support to use WAS Community Edition. More than 400 partners currently offer solutions on IBM's open source application server.