We now have a name for Sun's commercial distribution of Sailfin: Sun GlassFish Communications Server. Sailfin will support SIP Servlet 1.1 and can be used to develop applications using IM, VoIP and shared multimedia. The initial release is expected in the fall of this year and will be aligned with GF v2.1.

Check the Press Release for more details. Also, Ericsson and Sun are holding a Contest for Sailfin Applications. And previous entries on Sailfin at TheAquarium are here.

The Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server (nee Sun Java System Application Server) has a new, additional, "unlimited" pricing option. The offering was announced in the GlassFish Combo PR. As of this writing, the pricing has not yet propagated to the GF Subscriptions Page, but I know the concept is modeled on the MySQL Enterprise Unlimited offering.

Today Sun is launching a new partner program for the GlassFish Server. This program is initially targeted at ISVs and hosting providers but we have also seen high interest from SIs, consultants and trainers and we will expand it in that direction in the near future - check the Program Info to apply.

The initial companies in the program are listed below in alphabetical order. the list is growing, so check the Online Parter Showcase. Also, if you contacted us and you are not listed, please be patient and we will process your submission in the next few days.

• AdventNet
• BosTech Corporation
• CA - Wily Technology
• CGI
• Continuent
• DocDoku
• eApps Hosting
• Ericsson
• Funambol
• G2One
• MyEclipse
• GigaSpaces
• Halcyon
• Hyperic HQ
• ICEfaces
• ITAC Software
• JackBe
• JInspired
• Joyent
• jVantage
• Kaazing
• Liferay
• DaliCMS
• Manor N' Rock
• N(i)2
• NGASI
• Noemax
• Nuxeo
• Orbeon Forms
• Pentaho
• Reflexis
• SitePen (DWR)
• SpringSource
• Synchronica
• Telepo
• Terracotta
• Traffix
• XAware.ORG
• WebAppCabaret Hosting
• WebTide
• XWiki

Today Sun announced that we will be renaming our distribution of the GlassFish AppServer from "Sun Java System Application Server" to "Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server" to more clearly articulate its relationship with GlassFish.

I believe the new name will not kick in formally until the next release, which would be GF v2.1. Post any questions about the change as comments to this entry and we will address them.

Dalibor is joining Sun to work as a Java F/OSS Ambassado, helping projects like the OpenJDK. This is excellent news! Welcome aboard, Dalibor! Check out Dalibor's Announcement and Comments and Barton's Welcome.

We have started GlassFish For Business, a news blog that will cover Deployment and Business Needs around GlassFish and will report on Sun's offerings like our Enterprise Support, Training and Partner programs. No changes to the other blogs I'm involved with: The Aquarium - focused on important news in the larger GlassFish community and Adoption Stories. I have a small backlog of relevant pieces, so there will be some catching up over the next few days. So far I've posted some overview content including: Intro to the Blog, an Overview of Enterprise Support for GF from Sun, and Yael's Screencast on Online Interactions. The bulk of the entries so far are focused on the Sustaining Patches/Releases. As of this morning, I've caught up with the GlassFish v1 releases, including: • General Overview • Public Releases: GFv1 and GFv1 U1, • Patches from Sun's Commercial Offering: GFv1 U1p1, GFv1 U1p2, GFv1 U1p3, GFv1 U1p4, You can keep up with the posts via the feeds (ATOM and RSS) or directly to the GFB Website.

PS - I tried to find the right picture for this entry but I couldn't choose just one so I made a small collage from Los Altos in California to Wall Street in Mahattan to a Shopping Mall in Bristol to Commercial Street in Bangalore. I thought about adding Sand Hill Rd but it makes for boring pictures!

The MySQL acquisition is quickly changing the perception of Sun's commitment to Open Source. Earlier today I pointed to new efforts in the Health and the Education industries, here are two more stories:

• The University of Tokyo and Sun start Research on HPC and Web-based Languages
• Sun and Chinese Government announce OpenSPARC Collaboration.

Assessing all this, LinuxInsider says: Deals Cast Sun in Role of Open Source Standard Bearer.

I'm not surprised the deal is changing people's perceptions; but I am a bit surprised at how fast and how deeply it changes them. This is going to a be a very interesting year for us.

Afga, ICW and Sun have launched the Open eHealth initiative to leverage Open Source in the Health industry. Open eHealth's goal is to create a community-driven software development platform to speed up the digitization of the healthcare industry, with emphasis on delivering interoperable, standards-based solutions.

The service components will extend existing open source projects such as OpenESB, Glassfish, OpenSSO and Mural. More details in the Press Release and at the Open eHealth WebSite.

The big shift in the IT industry created by Open Source is accelerating. I have a biased perspective, but I strongly believe that Sun's strengths, size, and position will allow it to capitalize on and speed up the transition to this brave new world. I've a feeling we are not in Kansas anymore....

The Sun/MySQL deal has closed! Check out PR announcement, Jonathan's welcome and Kaj's note; more entries include mysql@TA, mysql@BSC and at Planet MySQL. Barton ComputerWorld and SJ Mercury News. The whole thing moved very fast (six weeks!) and, equally impressive is the amount of material that is already present at Sun's site, including:

• MySQL@Sun page,
• MySQL Technical Specifications,
• Training Material,
• Download,
• Administration Resources

There is a World Tour planned (I bet it will be fun to do, but I had to decline!), and don't miss the MySQL Users Conference. And stay tuned for further activity around MySQL and our middleware communities and products!

Nazrul has a job opening in his group to help develop GlassFish. Check Nazrul's note and the Job Description. Entry-level (I presume that includes "recent grads"), any geography. Contact Nazrul if interested.

BTW - I've just started tracking GlassFish job offers at Indeed.com (Live Trend, Snapshot) - jobs is probably one of the last things to start showing adoption, but it is nice to see it finally traking the Other Adoption Indicators. And yet another indicator is GlassFish-Questions@LinkedIn.

The Sun Startup Essentials (SSE) program aims to provide all the essentials needed by startups, including: Free Software and Services and Discounted Systems, Storage and Partner Hosting. GlassFish is included in the deal: you will get free developer assistance from the SSE team (which works closely with GF engineers), and - of course, GlassFish is free Right-to-Use. In addition to the US the program is available in 7 other countries so far: India, China, Israel, France, Germany, Canada and now also in the United Kingdom. The program has a 93% satisfaction rating; check it out and provide your Feedback.

Added - I just saw the announcement on the new Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor-based blades (Blog, PR) - they look nice, and I believe they will be included in SSE in the "near" future.

This Thursday (Feb 21st) Sun TechDays will have an event in Athens. The agenda includes an overview of GlassFish and roadmap; see the Overview and the Agenda. Speakers include Reggie and Doris as well as Paris and Heinz Kabutz. I think 2008 will be the year of wide adoption of GlassFish, so, if you drop by, we would appreciate your feedback on how well these events are working out.

Virtualization is important to everyone and developers are no exception. Sun has announced today the agreement to acquire innotek, the makers of VirtualBox, an Open Source virtualization software very well suited for desktop usage. Never heard of VirtualBox? Wondering what the relationship is with Sun's xVM hypervisor? answers it best on his blogSteve "Virtual" Wilson and Tim Marsland probably answer both questions the best.

This probably sounds compelling to developers given VirtualBox' open source nature and its ability to handle just about any hosts and guests (listed here) you may require for your Java and Web 2.0 developments.

You're 17MB away from using the software and the website is www.virtualbox.org and is unrelated to this ;-)

The SunTech Days at Hyderabad are fleshing out. Feb 27 and 28 are the main days and Feb 29 is for specialized events and GlassFish is represented in both.

Check out the Main Agenda and Arun's overview. The schedule for GlassFish Day is still evolving but includes both Sun and non-Sun speakers; our Wiki has the Up-to-date Schedule. Last year's event was very crowded; don't wait until the last moment.

Register Now!

Remember Blackbox, the "Data Center in a Shipping Container"? It is now shipping! The official name is Sun Modular Datacenter S20. Read from some Customers or see its World Tour.