ActiveGrid – where’s the business?

ActiveGrid sounds interesting. They’re creating a LAMP+java application server/application builder for making typical business apps. The key that they’re going after, and you can get this straight from their name, is easy deployment on grids of commodity hardware. Their tools support (or will support) several databases and PHP/Perl/Python or Java for development. Everything is XML-based, so much of the system is language-neutral.

It all sounds very interesting, but I’m left wondering what the business model is when I see a site like this. The application builder and server tools are available in early access right now (version 0.7, they say). And, they’re available under an Apache license. Are they starting one of the fabled services-based open source companies, or is there something else coming up?

I couldn’t find anything on their site that provided direction as far as ActiveGrid’s commercial offerings are concerned.