Red Hat wants to build a developer base and collect a critical mass of partners as it looks to the future
Middleware, virtualization, developer tools, software exchange all signal the Linux vendor wants to put another mark on enterprise infrastructure.
Clad in his pajamas, Red Hat co-founder Marc Ewing arrived at work at 11 a.m. one day in 1998, unlocked the office for a new employee, and promptly left to go back to sleep.
For a guy who developed the Linux distribution in his spare bedroom it just seemed natural. Today, however, such sleepy days are but a dream at Red Hat.
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The company is a powerhouse in the open source community: It owns 80% of the Linux market and posted $400 million in revenue for fiscal 2007 — a 44% increase over the previous year — and has $600 million in cash stashed under its blazing red fedora.
Last week’s second quarter 2008 earnings showed a 65% increase in net income and a 28% climb in revenue over the same quarter last year.
But Red Hat is moving out of its Linux operating system comfort zone and everyone from Microsoft to IBM to Oracle to Wall Street seems to be breathing down its neck. The company faces stiff challenges to spread beyond its roots, create a middleware platform, build a developer base and collect a critical mass of partners all so it can turn its IT infrastructure platform strategy to gold.
