WSO2 is an open-source technology provider founded in 2005. It delivers software and cloud solutions that provide foundational technologies for application development and identity and access management (IAM).[3] This represents an expansion upon its original focus on integrating application programming interfaces (APIs), applications, and web services locally and across the Internet.
 | |
| Industry | Middleware |
|---|---|
| Founded | August 2005 |
| Founder |
|
| Headquarters | , |
Number of locations | 11 (2023[1]) |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people |
|
Number of employees | 900+[2] |
| Website | wso2 |
History
WSO2 was founded by Sanjiva Weerawarana, Paul Fremantle, and Davanum Srinivas in August 2005, backed by Intel Capital, Toba Capital, and Pacific Controls. Weerawarana[4] was an IBM researcher and a founder of the Web services platform.[5][6] He led the creation of IBM SOAP4J,[7] which later became Apache SOAP, and was the architect of other notable projects. Fremantle was one of the authors of IBM's Web Services Invocation Framework and the Web Services Gateway.[8] An Apache member since the original Apache SOAP project, Fremantle oversaw the donation of WSIF and WSDL4J to Apache and led IBM's involvement in the Axis C/C++ project.
Fremantle was WSO2's chief technology officer (CTO) from 2008-2020,[9] [10] and was named one of InfoWorld's Top 25 CTOs his first year in the role.[11] Currently, Fremantle serves as a consultant for multiple technology companies, including WSO2.[10] In 2017, Tyler Jewell took over as CEO [12] while Weerawarana focused on the Ballerina open-source project.[13] [14] In 2019, Vinny Smith became the Executive Chairman.[15] Weerawarana returned to the role of CEO in 2020.[14]
A subsidiary, WSO2Mobile, was launched in 2013, with Harsha Purasinghe of Microimage as the CEO and co-founder.[16] In March 2015, WSO2.Telco was launched in partnership with Malaysian telecommunications company Axiata, [17] which held a majority stake in the venture.[18] WSO2Mobile has since been re-absorbed into its parent company.
Financial
In 2006, Intel Capital invested $4 million in WSO2,[19] and continued to invest in subsequent years. In 2010, Godel Technologies invested in WSO2 for an unspecified amount,[20] and in 2012 the company raised a third round of $10 million.[21][22] Official WSO2 records point to this being from Toba Capital, Cisco, and Intel Capital.[23] In August 2015, a funding round led by Pacific Controls and Toba raised another $20 million.[24][25] In November 2021, WSO2 obtained $90 million in financing from Goldman Sachs Asset Management Private Credit.[26] In May 2022, WSO2 completed its Series E funding with an additional $93 million investment from Info Edge.[27]
Open-source engagement
Historically, WSO2 has had a close connection to the Apache community, with a significant portion of their products based on or contributing to the Apache product stack.[28] Likewise, many of WSO2's top leadership have contributed to Apache projects. In 2013, WSO2 donated its Stratos project to Apache.[29][30]
WSO2 first introduced Ballerina, an open-source, general-purpose concurrent and strongly typed programming language with both textual and graphical syntaxes, optimized for integration in 2017.[31] General availability of Ballerina 1.0 at https://ballerina.io was then announced in 2019.[31][32] In a March 2023 product review, InfoWorld rated Ballerina 2201.4.0 (Swan Lake) 4 stars (out of a possible 5).[33]
Products
WSO2 products are released under the Apache License Version 2.[34] Like the Apache project itself, WSO2 follows open development principles and publishes architecture and development discussions.
Early development
WSO2's first product was code-named Tungsten and was meant for the development of web applications. Tungsten was followed by WSO2 Titanium, which later became WSO2 Enterprise Service Bus (ESB).[35]
In February 2009, WSO2 introduced the WSO2 Carbon componentized framework based on the Open Source Gateway Initiative (OSGi), designed to serve as the basis for all WSO2 software products.[36] [37] Version 5.3.0 of the open-source WSO2 Carbon Kernel was released in December 2022 and updated in January 2023.[38]
Current offerings
WSO2 offers a platform of middleware products for agile integration, application programming interface (API) management, and identity and access management.
In June 2015, WSO2 announced its first generation of software as a service (SaaS) versions of its open-source products.[39] As of Q1 2023, products include:
- WSO2 API Manager, a full life cycle API management platform which has incorporated the integration functionality of WSO2 Enterprise Integrator, since version 4.0 was introduced in 2021.[40] [41]
- Choreo, a SaaS internal developer platform to create, deploy, run, and govern APIs, integrations, and microservices on Kubernetes. WSO2 also offers Choreo API Manager and Choreo iPaaS.[42] [43] [3]
- WSO2 Micro Integrator, an integration engine with a low-code graphical designer.[44]
- WSO2 Identity Server, which provides identity management capabilities with a focus on customer identity and access management (CIAM).[45] [46]
- WSO2 Private CIAM Cloud. A cloud-hosted, managed service.[47]
- Asgardeo, an identity as a service (IDaaS) focused on CIAM.[48]
Industry recognition
The company gained recognition from a 2011 report in InformationWeek that eBay used WSO2 ESB as a key element of their transaction-processing software.[49] In 2022, InformationWeek published a podcast interview with WSO2 customer Hard Rock on “consolidating different digital customer experiences across Hard Rock's properties.” [50] Research firm Gartner noted that WSO2 was a leading competitor in the application infrastructure market of 2014.[51]
Recognition for WSO2 in the area of API management includes a rating of 4.5 out of 5 in the Gartner Peer Insights: Full Life Cycle API Management and a position in the Visionaries Quadrant of the 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Full Life Cycle API Management.[52] [53] [54]
Recognition for WSO2 in the areas of identity and access management and CIAM includes a rating of 4.3 out of 5 in the Gartner Peer Insights: Access Management, a Strong Performer position in The Forrester Wave™: Customer Identity And Access Management, Q4 2022, and a Leader position in the KuppingerCole Leadership Compass: CIAM Platforms, 2022.[55] [56] [57] [46]
Operations
As of 2023, WSO2 has offices in: Mountain View, California; Austin, Texas; London, UK; São Paulo, Brazil; Sydney, Australia; Munich, Germany; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Mumbai, India; Singapore, and Colombo, Sri Lanka. The bulk of its research and operations are conducted from its main office in Colombo.[58]