Red Hat snaps up Polymitas BPM platform to bolster middleware portfolio

Following on from Junes buyout of FuseSource, Red Hat continue on their middleware drive by picking up BPM gurus Polymita
As their second big middleware purchase of 2012, Red Hat
have snapped up the business-management platform from
Barcelona-based firm Polymita,
suggesting their next move lies in sprucing up jBPM.
Red Hat disclosed reasons for the purchase of Polymita
technology, revealing that it would allow them to “bring
complementary BPM capabilities that are designed to improve the
productivity of business users,” and more importantly the union
would position them as a “leading vendor” in the BPM
marketplace.
Although a specified product roadmap featuring Polymita
solutions isn’t available, Red Hat did make it clear that their
goal is to make the core open source – in keeping with their
general strategy. The benefits of doing this are obvious: they want
to pique the interest of their vast community, especially project
leads. By presenting the technology as something that could aid
everyone, and not just
JBoss Enterprise BRMS and jBPM, they could
be onto a winner.
Red Hat have long let the community know their intentions
when it comes to middleware. Mark Little, who leads the technical
direction, has spoke in the
past of how they see it driving innovation in the
future.
They recognise the importance of having flexible middleware
options, as it often spreads into the entire enterprise portfolio.
They also realise how the term is changing to accommodate for
mobile and cloud architectural changes.
It provides the glue that you can’t do without as a
developer. Whether it’s the enterprise
service bus, enterprise application integration or something
message oriented, middleware should never be forgotten
about.
Over recent months, we’ve seen Red Hat go on
an assault to acquire as many middleware
specialists as they can to firm up their enterprise options –
namely the jewel in the crown, JBoss EAP. June’s purchase of
FuseSource, the hugely successful providers of
ActiveMQ and Apache Camel
enterprise–tailored solutions, gave us a
sign of things to come. Led by Groovy creator James Strachan,
FuseSource made their name by being one of the most active
contributors to Apache Software Foundation projects, becoming well
respected in open source circles. Something which clearly entices
the $1bn revenue generating Red Hat.
For the time being at least, Polymita customers will continue
to receive support from Polymita themselves, with Red Hat to take
control and supply a converged roadmap in due course.
Whilst this acquisition isn’t necessarily a surprising one
given Big Red’s previous allure to tried and tested
middleware specialists, we’re intrigued
to see who is next in their hiring line.