Such software disruption is a long shot, since WebSphere MQ (formerly MQ Series) is embedded in the workings of 75% of the Fortune 1000. "Customers love it," points out Anne Thomas Manes, SOA and Web services analyst with the Burton Group.

Red Hat is gambling on Advanced Message Queuing Protocol. Red Hat has made AMQP the cornerstone of an expansion of its JBoss capabilities called Red Hat Enterprise MRG--Messaging, Real Time, Grid (pronounced Enterprise "Merge"). Due in the first half of 2008, Enterprise MRG is a combination of AMQP with real-time operations already in the Linux kernel and grid computing capabilities flowing out of the Condor Project at the University of Wisconsin.

It was smart of Red Hat to use AMQP in Enterprise MRG, since the open source vendor was previously relying on Java Messaging Service as its messaging source and JMS implementations tend to differ enough between vendors that no two work easily together, Manes explains. AMQP at least puts Red Hat on more neutral territory, with the possibility that others will pick up the protocol. Even so, predicts Manes, "it won't become a standard unless folks like IBM adopt it."