SpringSource

Spring (previously known as SpringSource) was the company created by the founders of the Spring Framework (a programming model for enterprise Java applications) to support and develop Spring and related projects. Originally incorporated as Interface 21, it was renamed SpringSource in 2008 to better reflect its main business. Over time most of the Spring developers were employed full-time by the company which offered training and consulting services to finance its activities (Spring itself is open source and is freely available to all). The company was then renamed as Spring. Recognizing that the platform of choice for most Spring applications was Apache Tomcat, Spring merged with Covalent on January 29, 2008. Like Spring, Covalent was the financial vehicle supporting some of the developers of Tomcat.

Several other acquisitions followed: G2One (the company behind Groovy and Grails), Hyperic (who developed a tool for monitoring Java applications and their environment) and Cloud Foundry (a Platform as a Service provider). As a result, SpringSource employed some of the lead developers and committers of the Apache Tomcat, Apache HTTP Server, Hyperic, Apache Groovy and Grails open source communities. SpringSource was also a participant in the Java Community Process.

Using these acquisitions, the company's business expanded beyond support for its application frameworks, Spring and Grails. It could now offer a suite of software products across all three stages of the enterprise Java application life cycle: build (develop), run (deploy), and manage. SpringSource created two commercial, server products specifically aimed at Spring developers. TC Server is a commercial version of Tomcat integrated with Hyperic for deployment and management. DM Server was an OSGi based server which never was commercially viable. After spending millions on development with no result, it was subsequently donated to the