[via BetaNews]

Linux vendor Red Hat announced Monday it has entered into an agreement to acquire JBoss, maker of middleware, or software that connects disparate systems and applications to facilitate faster and cheaper development. Red Hat will pay $350 million in cash and stock for the company, with another $70 million payout based on performance.

With the acquisition, Red Hat says it will transition to service-oriented architectures (SOA) in order to enable running next-generation Web applications atop a low-cost open source platform. JBoss has a similar business model to Red Hat, offering service and support for its open source middleware applications.

Have a look also at the official press release from RedHat.