Jboss and Microsoft – Oil and water or a powerful combination?

Microsoft and JBoss recently signed an agreement to make their software work better together.

This marks a big change for Microsoft and its stand on open source. In the past, Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO, has referred to the open source movement "a cancer" to the industry. Ballmer recently softened this hostile tone to say that Microsoft competes with products and not movements. I'm not sure that's the equivalent of a hug from Microsoft--consider the source--but it is something of a concession, anyway.

Anyhow, the partnership should be good news for developers and the IT industry as a whole. We want vendors to work together through partnerships and integration. We do not need them to all become one big happy company--thanks to a monopoly of one sort or another.