IBM announces plan to acquire Red Hat for $34bn

[HEXUS]

IBM says that after the acquisition it "will become the world's #1 hybrid cloud provider".

Read more.

[peterb]

Interesting! I knew IBM have concentrated on both cloud and open source software - so I hope this wont adversely affect the development of Fedora. In an ideal world - given that Fedora is a developmental strand of the Red Hat enterprise solutions, any effect will be positive - more resources - but time will tell.

[MrRockliffe]

Interesting! I knew IBM have concentrated on both cloud and open source software - so I hope this wont adversely affect the development of Fedora. In an ideal world - given that Fedora is a developmental strand of the Red Hat enterprise solutions, any effect will be positive - more resources - but time will tell.

IBM are keeping Red Hat a separate entity, so I don't see any real changes coming. At the end of the day, the growth at Red Hat is exponential, so they won't want to do anything to change that.

[chrestomanci]

IBM are keeping Red Hat a separate entity, so I don't see any real changes coming. At the end of the day, the growth at Red Hat is exponential, so they won't want to do anything to change that.

I doubt that. The temptation to milk RedHat for cash will be too great. My prediction is that the cost of service contracts will rise, and the frequency of updates will fall. It will become harder to buy RedHat support contracts without buying loads of other IBM products you don't need. Over time most of RedHat's most talented engineers will leave out of frustration or culture clashes, and in 5 years time RedHat will become just another name in the history of open source that got eaten.

Ten years ago when I was working for Nokia, I was a DBA for a source code database. (Telelogic Synergy). It was fairly innovative for it's time and suited Nokia's needs quite well. Then IBM acquired it. The support quality dropped, the prices went up, and if you needed any on site support they started charging you €1,000/day for consultants who where in fact recent graduates who knew very little.

[MrRockliffe]

I doubt that. The temptation to milk RedHat for cash will be too great. My prediction is that the cost of service contracts will rise, and the frequency of updates will fall. It will become harder to buy RedHat support contracts without buying loads of other IBM products you don't need. Over time most of RedHat's most talented engineers will leave out of frustration or culture clashes, and in 5 years time RedHat will become just another name in the history of open source that got eaten.

Ten years ago when I was working for Nokia, I was a DBA for a source code database. (Telelogic Synergy). It was fairly innovative for it's time and suited Nokia's needs quite well. Then IBM acquired it. The support quality dropped, the prices went up, and if you needed any on site support they started charging you €1,000/day for consultants who where in fact recent graduates who knew very little.

I guess we'll see, but considering how IBM have paid through the roof for Red Hat shares, and we've already had an email from Jim to say he'll remain the CEO of Red Hat, I can't see it changing. The IBM CEO came on stage today to announce that not a single thing will change going forward, other than they'll be taking on Red Hat culture.

[spacein_vader]

I guess we'll see, but considering how IBM have paid through the roof for Red Hat shares, and we've already had an email from Jim to say he'll remain the CEO of Red Hat, I can't see it changing. The IBM CEO came on stage today to announce that not a single thing will change going forward, other than they'll be taking on Red Hat culture.

Big blue + red hat = Big Purple?

[MrRockliffe]

Big blue + red hat = Big Purple?

She (IBM CEO) was wearing purple

[Tabbykatze]

I guess we'll see, but considering how IBM have paid through the roof for Red Hat shares, and we've already had an email from Jim to say he'll remain the CEO of Red Hat, I can't see it changing. The IBM CEO came on stage today to announce that not a single thing will change going forward, other than they'll be taking on Red Hat culture.

Isn't that what Facebook says about their acquisitions. Not saying IBM is anything like how Facebook is being run by a Lizard Man but the opportunity to be greedy is an opportunity a large business that is publicly traded will be forced to do

[aidanjt]

They still have to be careful about getting greedy, they have competition in Canonical and Novell.

[MrRockliffe]

Isn't that what Facebook says about their acquisitions. Not saying IBM is anything like how Facebook is being run by a Lizard Man but the opportunity to be greedy is an opportunity a large business that is publicly traded will be forced to do

IBM have no choice but to leave Red Hat alone - they can't really start getting involved, or Red Hat will lose customers. They can't be seen to favour IBMs cloud service over anyone else, or, by definition, they won't be a true hybrid cloud provider.

[aidanjt]

Which begs the question as to why they bothered splashing out £34B for it in the first place.