Extreme Beginner Question

[krollings]

My boss told me that competitor XYZ is using JBOSS and I need to find out what it is and how to make it work for us. If you point me to the correct location, Ill be happy to read up on what I want to know, but I cant find it anywhere so here is my question:
What exactly is JBOSS...what problem is JBOSS the solution to?
(yeah, yeah, yeah, 2 questions, but they are sort of the same)

Im sure there are hints to the answers to this question, but without
a clue, its hard to get a clue. Anyway, any enlightenment you can provide would certainly be appreciated.

Thanks.

[carpy1970]

Try looking at the jboss home page, i.e. www.jboss.org. there are links there that will answer your questions (strangely enough)

What your boss has asked you to do seems very strange to me. Normally you have a problem and try to find a solution to it. What your boss has said is xyz are using jboss as a solution, find out what it is then we can see if we have a probolem it will solve.

[adrian.brock]

I couldn't agree more. Features chasing users is a bad thing.

You can also start with Sun's FAQ
http://java.sun.com/j2ee/faq.html

[krollings]

thanks for the responses.
as for the assignment, mine is not to question why...

[juha]

Competitor XYZ may be running, say, a web reservation system on JBoss (just a guess!). Integrating their backend system to a web front end by putting a JBoss application server in between. They may want to handle the customer registration, store that information, manage user sessions, run availability queries on customer request, periodically send news letters and offerings to the customer, track points and bonuses, profile customers etc., all securely and within transactional work flows, using standardized APIs.

JBoss (J2EE) allows you to handle all this within the same platform umbrella rather than duct tape many different technologies together in an ad hoc way to achieve the same. That's one example.

[krollings]

Juha,
that was most helpful. Thank you for taking the time to help.