IBM Steps into Gluecode

Open source services company Gluecode got slurped up by IBM this week. It provides custom services to companies who use Geronimo, an open source competitor to IBM's WebSphere. JBoss is another competitor in this market.

Why would IBM want to buy a company that appears to compete with one of its products? Actually, IBM can't do much about Geronimo - it's open source - no easy money there and no way to take it off the market. And they don't want to go low-end with Websphere - the descent may be endless. So why not buy up the services side? Costly customization is the IBM way.