Where are IBM and Red Hat going from here?



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The future of IBM and Red Hat
As IBM's acquisition of Red Hat begins to unfold, TechRepublic's Karen Roby turned to ZDNet's Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols to better understand the current state of the company and its future. Learn more: https://zd.net/2JRtb6T

IBM acquired Red Hat for a mere $ 34 billion. IBM hopes Red Hat will contribute to IBM's annual revenue growth over the next five years. This growth will come from the continued rise of the hybrid cloud. How are they going to do that? In the same way that Red Hat has always evolved: by adopting the open source software approach.

In particular, as Paul Cormier, President of Red Hat Products and Technologies, said during a conference call, he will continue to move forward with the hybrid cloud: " Today, we are starting this journey on steroids. "

IBM CEO Ginni Rometty has agreed to:

"Enterprises are entering the next chapter of their digital reinvention, modernizing their infrastructure and moving critical workloads to private clouds and multiple cloud vendors, and they need open and flexible technology to manage these environments." And they need partners IBM and Red Hat are uniquely positioned to meet these needs and as a leading hybrid cloud provider, we will help our customers build the technology foundation for their businesses. decades to come. "

Red Hat will do this while maintaining its open source code and independence.

In a note to employees, Jim Whitehurst, CEO of Red Hat – who remains on site – said:

"You've heard that before, but it's important to remember that Red Hat is still Red Hat, and IBM is committed to maintaining its independence, neutrality, culture and industry partnerships.

I know you want to know what that means to you and it's pretty simple. Our mission, our culture, our "community first" commitment, our product portfolio, our management team, our daily activities, our brand and our soul will remain the same. Our unwavering commitment to open source – and all it takes to integrate it into the business – is what makes us Red Hat. It does not change. "

Red Hat will work as a separate unit within IBM. It will report as part of IBM's cloud and Cognitive Software activities, but will remain independent. Red Hat will also retain its existing facilities, brands and unique leadership style in open organization.

The last thing IBM wants is to turn Red Hat into another IBM brand. As Arvind Krishna, IBM's vice president for the hybrid cloud, said when announcing the deal: "Red Hat must remain independent and stay on its own."

Open-source will remain the heart and soul of Red Hat. As stated by Chris Wright, CTO of Red Hat:

"I think that open source has gained its place as a standard for modern computing solutions long before becoming the center of the largest software acquisition in history. taken away when Linux went from a marginal technology to a dominant position in the enterprise, tools and stacks of open source software have become the solution of choice for developers and have been winners when new companies start Global reach has sprung up on open source technology foundations.Today, that is why open source is an engine of innovation for the technology sector of the world. 39; information.

For Red Hat, "open" is in our DNA. It is the preeminent spirit that has motivated us since our very beginning and something that we will not only preserve through this acquisition, but we will deepen. "

Wright also pointed out in a FAQ about open-source community developers: "Red Hat will continue to contribute and participate in open-source projects as we do today." For example, "Red Hat associates can contribute and participate in open source projects outside of Red Hat as they do today."

For programmers working with Red Hat software, Brad Micklea, senior director of tools for development, programs, and evangelism at Red Hat, said things would not change. As a result, the Red Hat Developer Group will remain independent of the IBM Developer Group. This means that the Red Hat Developer program – including the site, the blog and the social media channels – will remain independent. If you are already in the Red Hat Developer program, you will continue to benefit from free access to Red Hat. software downloads, ebooks, events and quality content. "

Red Hat partners will contribute to the work and benefit from the growth of the hybrid cloud, Mark Enzweiler. The Executive Vice President of Sales and Global Alliances of the Red Hat Network said:

"IBM and Red Hat will leverage separate partner programs and create distinct partner ecosystems, and together we will continue to develop and expand our work with organizations around the world and across all sectors … IBM creates a multiplier for our partners will open these ways where it makes sense. "

Naturally, Enzweiler sees the open hybrid cloud as a major area of ​​opportunity:

"Our ecosystem of partners will continue to help customers advance their cloud strategies with accelerated business offerings.We have been talking about hybrid cloud for years and we have built a strong and flexible open hybrid cloud portfolio. We will now have access to the breadth and depth of IBM's innovation and industry expertise, which our partners can leverage to create new services for customers. Is really the best of both worlds for our partners. "

All this seems good. I think this acquisition will benefit IBM, Red Hat, and all Linux and open source users. But starting today, we will begin by seeing if the merger can live up to its promises.

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