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| Red Hat (acquired by IBM) | |
|---|---|
| Name | Red Hat |
| Type | Subsidiary |
| Industry | Software |
| Fate | Acquired by IBM |
| Founded | 1993 |
| Founder | Bob Young; Marc Ewing |
| Headquarters | Raleigh, North Carolina |
| Products | Red Hat Enterprise Linux; OpenShift; Ansible; JBoss |
| Parent | IBM |
Red Hat (acquired by IBM) is an enterprise software company known for its commercial distributions of Linux and its contributions to free software and open source projects. Founded by Bob Young and Marc Ewing in 1993, the company grew into a major vendor of operating system platforms, middleware, virtualization, and cloud computing technologies before being acquired by International Business Machines (IBM) in 2019. Red Hat combined subscription-based support with community-led development models, interacting with projects such as Fedora Project, Kubernetes, OpenStack, and Linux kernel development.
Red Hat was founded in 1993 by entrepreneurs Bob Young and Marc Ewing and launched early products linked to the Linux kernel community, cooperating with initiatives like the Debian and Fedora Project. In the 1990s Red Hat participated in events such as LinuxCon and collaborated with companies including IBM, HP, Sun Microsystems, and Intel Corporation to commercialize open source software. The company expanded through acquisitions of firms such as Cygnus Solutions, JBoss, Ansible, Inc., and CoreOS, Inc., while engaging with standards organizations like the Open Source Initiative and the Linux Foundation. Red Hat completed an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange in 1999 and later pursued corporate alliances with Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Red Hat Satellite partners prior to its acquisition by International Business Machines.
Red Hat developed and supported distributions such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux and community projects such as the Fedora Project and technologies derived from acquisitions like JBoss Application Server and Ansible (software). The company maintained platforms for containerization and orchestration, notably integrating Kubernetes into Red Hat OpenShift and aligning with ecosystem tools from Docker, Inc. and CoreOS. In virtualization and cloud, Red Hat offered solutions interoperating with OpenStack clouds and hypervisors such as KVM and partnerships involving VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V, and Xen Project. Red Hat’s middleware and developer stacks linked to standards from Apache Software Foundation projects and employed languages and runtimes like Java (programming language), Python (programming language), and Golang.
Red Hat’s revenue model centered on subscription services for support, certification, and consulting sold to enterprises including General Electric, AT&T, Walmart, Bank of America, and Deutsche Bank. The company established technology partnerships with cloud providers Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure and engaged with systems vendors Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Cisco Systems, and Lenovo. Red Hat also pursued alliances with standards and governance bodies such as the OpenStack Foundation, Cloud Native Computing Foundation, and Linux Foundation to foster interoperability and market adoption. Strategic acquisitions and collaborations with firms like CoreOS, Inc. and Ansible, Inc. augmented product portfolios and channel relationships.
Red Hat’s leadership included CEOs such as Matthew Szulik and Jim Whitehurst, with board interactions involving investors like Sequoia Capital and Dun & Bradstreet stakeholders prior to the acquisition. The company maintained offices across regions including Raleigh, North Carolina, Boston, London, Beijing, and Bangalore, governed by corporate policies aligning with public-company regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission and corporate governance practices common on the New York Stock Exchange. After the acquisition by International Business Machines, executive roles integrated with IBM leadership under then-CEO Ginni Rometty and later Arvind Krishna.
In October 2018 International Business Machines announced an agreement to acquire Red Hat for $34 billion, one of the largest software acquisitions in history, triggering reviews by regulatory authorities including the European Commission and the United States Department of Justice. The deal closed in 2019, making Red Hat a standalone subsidiary within IBM’s Hybrid cloud division while preserving commitments to the open source community and projects such as Fedora Project and contributions to the Linux kernel. The acquisition reshaped alliances among major vendors including Microsoft, Amazon.com, Google, and enterprise customers evaluating multi-cloud strategies.
Red Hat competed with vendors including SUSE, Canonical (company), Oracle Corporation, Microsoft, and cloud-native providers such as Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform in operating systems, middleware, and container platforms. Its enterprise Linux certification and support models influenced procurement at institutions like NASA, European Space Agency, Deutsche Bank, and major telecommunications firms including Verizon Communications and Vodafone. Red Hat’s market position drove standards debates within the Cloud Native Computing Foundation and affected trajectories of projects like OpenStack and Kubernetes amid competition from proprietary stacks offered by VMware, Inc. and Oracle Corporation.
Red Hat was a major corporate contributor to projects including the Linux kernel, Kubernetes, Ansible (software), OpenShift, Jenkins (software), Fedora Project, GCC (GNU Compiler Collection), and GlusterFS. The company sponsored community events such as FOSDEM, Red Hat Summit, and LinuxCon and collaborated with foundations like the Apache Software Foundation and the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. Red Hat’s engineers frequently participated in upstream development, code reviews, and standards work with organizations including the Open Source Initiative and the Linux Foundation, influencing licensing and governance debates surrounding GPL (software), permissive licenses, and community-driven projects.
Category:Software companies Category:Acquisitions by IBM