Spring (previously known as SpringSource) was a software company founded by Rod Johnson, who also created the Spring Framework, an

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

application framework In computer programming, an application framework consists of a software framework used by software developers to implement the standard structure of application software. Application frameworks became popular with the rise of graphical user inte ...

for enterprise

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

applications. VMware purchased Spring for $420 million in August 2009.

History

Originally incorporated by Rod Johnson in 2004 as Interface21, the company was renamed SpringSource in 2007 to better reflect its association with the Spring Framework. Over time, most Spring developers were employed full-time. Spring is

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

. The company was eventually renamed Spring. Spring acquired Covalent Technologies on January 29, 2008, which was then one of the leading contributors to Apache Tomcat. Several other acquisitions then followed: * G2One, the company behind

Apache Groovy Apache Groovy is a Java-syntax-compatible object-oriented programming language for the Java platform. It is both a static and dynamic language with features similar to those of Python, Ruby, and Smalltalk. It can be used as both a programming l ...

and Grails, acquired in November 2008 * Hyperic, which developed a tool for monitoring Java applications and their environment, acquired in May 2009 * Cloud Foundry, a

Platform as a Service Platform as a service (PaaS) or application platform as a service (aPaaS) or platform-based service is a cloud computing service model where users provision, instantiate, run and manage a modular bundle of a computing platform and applications, w ...

provider, acquired in August 2009 Using these acquisitions, the company's business expanded beyond support for its application frameworks, Spring and Grails. It went on to 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, a commercial version of Tomcat integrated with Hyperic for deployment and management, and DM Server, an

OSGi OSGi is an open specification and open source project under the Eclipse Foundation. It is a continuation of the work done by the OSGi Alliance (formerly known as the Open Services Gateway initiative), which was an open standards organization fo ...

based server which never was commercially viable. After spending millions on development with no result, it was subsequently donated to the

Eclipse Foundation The Eclipse Foundation AISBL is an independent, Europe-based not-for-profit organization that acts as a steward of the Eclipse open source software development community, with legal jurisdiction in the European Union. It is an organization supp ...

as the

Virgo Virgo may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Virgo (film), a 1970 Egyptian film * Virgo (character), several Marvel Comics characters * Virgo Asmita, a character in the manga ''Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas'' * ''Virgo'' (album), by Virgo Four, ...

project. Both servers came with a number of customer support options.

Acquisition by VMware

In August 2009, SpringSource was purchased for $420 million by VMware, where it was maintained for some time as a separate division within VMware. The commercial products were rebadged as the vFabric Application Suite. Acquisitions continued including RabbitMQ (an open-source AMQP message broker),

Redis Redis (; Remote Dictionary Server) is an in-memory key–value database, used as a distributed cache and message broker, with optional durability. Because it holds all data in memory and because of its design, Redis offers low- latency reads ...

(an open source, noSQL key-value store) and

Gemstone A gemstone (also called a fine gem, jewel, precious stone, semiprecious stone, or simply gem) is a piece of mineral crystal which, when cut or polished, is used to make jewellery, jewelry or other adornments. Certain Rock (geology), rocks (such ...

(developer of several data-management products). These products (except Redis) also became part of the vFabric product set. In April 2013, VMware, along with its parent company

EMC Corporation EMC Corporation (stylized as EMC²) was an American multinational corporation headquartered in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, which sold data storage device, data storage, information security, virtualization, analytics, cloud computing and other pro ...

, formally created a joint venture (with GE) called

Pivotal Software Pivotal Software, Inc. was an American Multinational corporation, multinational software and Service (economics), services company based in San Francisco that provided Cloud computing, cloud platform hosting and consulting services. Since Novemb ...

. All of VMware's application-oriented products, including Spring, were transferred to this organization. VMware reacquired Pivotal in 2019 and folded it into the Tanzu application suite. VMware sold the Gemstone object database products to GemTalk Systems in May 2013. Pivotal ended their sponsorship of Groovy/Grails in March 2015.

References

External links

*{{Official website, spring.io VMware Defunct software companies of the United States Defunct computer companies based in New York (state)