Red Hat
| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Software |
| Predecessor | Red Hat Software, Inc. |
| Founded | 1993 |
| Founder | Bob Young, Marc Ewing |
| Headquarters | Raleigh , United States |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Jim Whitehurst (CEO as of 2014) |
| Products | Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat Virtualization, middleware, storage systems, management utilities, support services, training programs, consulting |
| Owner | IBM |
Number of employees | ~600 (as of 2011 relocation to new HQ) |
| Parent | IBM |
| Website | www |
Red Hat, Inc. (previously known as Red Hat Software, Inc.) is a United States-based software company that focuses on delivering open source software solutions tailored for enterprise clients and functions as a subsidiary of IBM. Established in 1993, the company’s main corporate headquarters is situated in Raleigh, North Carolina, complemented by offices worldwide.
The company’s flagship product is its enterprise-grade operating system, Red Hat Enterprise Linux. After acquiring the middleware provider JBoss, Red Hat broadened its offerings to include Red Hat Virtualization (RHV), alongside storage systems, operating platforms, middleware, applications, management utilities, support services, training programs, and consulting.
Red Hat actively engages in the development and support of various free software initiatives and has incorporated several proprietary technologies through acquisitions and mergers, subsequently releasing these under open-source licenses. As of 2016, it ranked as the second largest corporate contributor to Linux kernel version 4.14, following Intel.
IBM announced its intent to acquire Red Hat for $34 billion on October 28, 2018, with the acquisition finalized on July 9, 2019. Post-acquisition, Red Hat continues to operate as an autonomous subsidiary within IBM’s organizational framework.
History
The origins trace back to 1993 when Bob Young founded ACC Corporation, a catalog business focused on distributing Linux and Unix software accessories. In 1994, Marc Ewing created Red Hat Linux, naming it after a distinctive red lacrosse cap from Cornell University that he wore during his time at Carnegie Mellon University. Young purchased Ewing’s company in 1995 and merged the two entities to form Red Hat Software, appointing himself as CEO.
Red Hat made its public debut on August 11, 1999, experiencing one of the most substantial initial trading gains on Wall Street that day. Later that year, Matthew Szulik took over as CEO from Young. Subsequently, Young went on to establish Lulu, a self-publishing and print-on-demand platform.
On November 15, 1999, Red Hat acquired Cygnus Solutions—a commercial entity supporting free software—with Cygnus founder Michael Tiemann becoming Red Hat’s Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of open-source initiatives by 2008. Additional acquisitions included WireSpeed, C2Net, Hell's Kitchen Systems, and Akopia.
In February 2000, InfoWorld honored Red Hat Linux 6.1 with its fourth consecutive "Operating System Product of the Year" award. The company expanded further by acquiring Planning Technologies in 2001 and later obtaining AOL's iPlanet directory and certificate-server software in 2004.
In February 2002, Red Hat shifted its headquarters from Durham to North Carolina State University’s Centennial Campus in Raleigh. The following month marked the launch of Red Hat Linux Advanced Server—later rebranded as Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Leading technology corporations such as Dell, IBM, HP, and Oracle publicly endorsed RHEL.
By December 2005, Red Hat had secured the top position in CIO Insight’s "Vendor Value Survey" for the second year running. Its stock was added to the NASDAQ-100 index on December 19 of that year.
In June 2006, Red Hat acquired JBoss and integrated its middleware solutions into what became known as the Red Hat Application Stack. The company transitioned its stock listing from NASDAQ to the New York Stock Exchange in December 2006. Subsequent acquisitions like MetaMatrix (2007), Mobicents (2007), and Amentra (2008) enhanced its capabilities in service-oriented architecture and enterprise data services.
On July 27, 2009, Red Hat was included in the S&P 500 index—a notable achievement reflecting the growing acceptance of Linux within enterprise markets.
In December 2009, Red Hat resolved a class action lawsuit related to financial restatements with an $8.8 million settlement.
January 2011 saw an announcement of a $109 million investment aimed at expanding Red Hat’s Raleigh headquarters by adding approximately 540 jobs and advancing technologies in software virtualization and cloud computing.
By August 25, 2011, around 600 employees had relocated to Two Progress Plaza in downtown Raleigh; this new headquarters was officially opened in June 2013.
Fiscal year 2012 marked a milestone with Red Hat becoming the first open-source company to surpass $1 billion in annual revenue. By 2015 revenues exceeded $2 billion and approached $3 billion by early 2018.
In October 2015, Red Hat acquired Ansible—an IT automation startup—for roughly $100 million.
June 2017 saw the release of version 1.0 of Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure (RHHI) software.
The company further expanded its portfolio through the acquisition of CoreOS in May 2018.
Recently, controversies have arisen due to Red Hat’s associations with certain branches of Israel’s military and its support for Israeli partners amid ongoing conflicts; these ties have prompted boycott calls from various groups.
IBM subsidiary
On October 28, 2018, IBM revealed plans to acquire Red Hat for $34 billion, representing one of its most significant purchases to date. Following the acquisition, Red Hat became part of IBM's Hybrid Cloud division. Other major technology companies such as Microsoft, Amazon, and Google were also reported to have considered purchasing Red Hat.
The acquisition received clearance from the US Department of Justice on May 3, 2019, after completing its regulatory review. The transaction was officially closed on July 9, 2019.
Fedora Project
Red Hat serves as the principal sponsor of the Fedora Project, a community-led initiative dedicated to accelerating the development of free and open-source software through collaborative efforts.
Business model
Red Hat’s business model is built around open-source software creation, rigorous professional quality assurance, and subscription-based customer support services. By releasing open-source code, it fosters a wide developer base that contributes enhancements and customizations.
Revenue is primarily derived from subscriptions that provide customers with support, training, and integration assistance to effectively utilize Red Hat’s open-source offerings. These subscription plans grant unlimited access to services such as Red Hat Network and round-the-clock technical support for a fixed fee.
In September 2014, CEO Jim Whitehurst emphasized a strategic pivot from traditional client-server computing towards cloud and mobile platforms to meet shifting market needs.
Legal team member Rich Bynum attributes the swift expansion and success of Linux in part to Red Hat’s open-source business framework.
One Laptop per Child
Red Hat partnered with the nonprofit One Laptop per Child to create cost-effective laptops aimed at enhancing global access to education and communication. The project's final release, the XO-4 laptop (2012), runs on a customized Fedora Linux distribution.
KVM
Originally developed in 2006 by startup Qumranet, which Red Hat acquired in 2008, KVM has become an integral element of Red Hat’s virtualization solutions, illustrating the company’s strategy of expanding its portfolio through targeted acquisitions.
GNOME
As the largest contributor to the GNOME desktop environment, Red Hat employs multiple full-time developers working on Evolution, GNOME’s official personal information manager.
systemd
Red Hat developed this Linux initialization system and service manager, which has seen widespread adoption throughout the industry.
PulseAudio
Distributed via the freedesktop.org project, PulseAudio is a network-capable sound server that enhances audio management on Linux platforms.
Dogtail
Dogtail is an open-source automated testing framework for graphical user interfaces (GUI) created by Red Hat. Written in Python and licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), it assists developers in application testing and was introduced at the 2006 Red Hat Summit.
MRG
Red Hat MRG ("Messaging Realtime Grid") offers a clustering solution tailored for integrated high-performance computing (HPC). It replaces the standard kernel in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) to provide real-time computing capabilities, message brokering, and workload scheduling across local or remote virtual machines as well as grid and cloud infrastructures.
Since 2011, Red Hat has collaborated with the Condor High-Throughput Computing System community and offers support for Condor software. The Tuna tool functions within the MRG environment to monitor and enhance system performance.
Opensource.com
Since its inception on January 20, 2010, Red Hat has maintained Opensource.com, a digital platform dedicated to illustrating the application of open-source philosophies beyond software development, encompassing sectors such as business, education, government, legal fields, healthcare, and others. Prior to this, Red Hat issued the newsletter Under the Brim alongside the technical journal Wide Open, which debuted in March 2004. These two publications were consolidated into Red Hat Magazine in November 2004, ultimately evolving into Opensource.com in 2010. In April 2023, as part of organizational restructuring, Red Hat terminated the team responsible for maintaining Opensource.com.
Red Hat Exchange
Red Hat introduced Red Hat Exchange in 2007 as a distribution platform that resold free and open-source software (FOSS) from partner organizations while retaining the original product branding. This initiative aimed to broaden Red Hat’s portfolio within the FOSS ecosystem. By 2010, however, Red Hat discontinued the Exchange service to focus efforts on its Open Source Channel Alliance, launched in April 2009, signaling a strategic pivot toward fostering collaborative partnerships and expanding market presence.
Red Hat build of Keycloak
The Red Hat build of Keycloak (previously known as Red Hat Single Sign-On) delivers single sign-on capabilities integrated with Identity and Access Management tailored for contemporary applications and services. This product is derived from the open-source Keycloak project, which serves as its upstream foundation.
Red Hat Subscription Management
Red Hat Subscription Management (RHSM) combines subscription oversight with content delivery, underpinning Red Hat’s subscription-based business framework while simplifying system registration and entitlement administration for enterprise clients.
Ceph Storage
Red Hat stands as the foremost contributor to the Ceph Storage initiative—a software-defined storage solution that supports Block, File, and Object Storage across standard x86 servers, Ethernet IP networks, ARM architectures, InfiniBand connectivity, and more.
Engineered for fully distributed operation without single points of failure and scalable to exabyte capacities, Ceph ensures data resilience via commodity hardware through methods such as replication, erasure coding, snapshots, and cloning. The platform is designed to be self-healing and self-managing, thereby minimizing administrative overhead.
By unifying various storage demands within a consolidated management structure, Ceph optimizes resource utilization and facilitates adaptable server deployment throughout an organization’s infrastructure.
OpenShift
Red Hat offers OpenShift, a cloud computing platform-as-a-service supporting application development in languages including Node.js, PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, JavaEE, among others. On July 31, 2018, Red Hat launched Istio 1.0—a microservices management tool that augments Kubernetes by delivering traffic control, security enforcement, policy management, and telemetry capabilities to simplify container orchestration. As the second-largest contributor to Kubernetes code after Google, Red Hat solidifies its influential position within cloud-native technology markets.
OpenStack
Red Hat provides a tailored edition of OpenStack aimed at simplifying data center operations through cloud computing technologies, thereby enhancing its suite of enterprise infrastructure solutions.
CloudForms
Red Hat CloudForms offers management for virtual machines and containers across diverse platforms including VMware vSphere, Red Hat Virtualization, Microsoft Hyper-V, OpenStack, Amazon EC2, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, and OpenShift. Originating from the open-source ManageIQ initiative—acquired in 2012 for more than $100 million—CloudForms strengthens Red Hat’s hybrid cloud management offerings and supports expansion in multi-cloud business environments.
CoreOS
Container Linux, previously known as CoreOS Linux, was a minimalist open-source operating system designed for clustered environments utilizing software containers. It delivered critical infrastructure features such as integrated service discovery and shared configuration. This project has since been discontinued as Red Hat incorporates these functionalities into its comprehensive container and cloud strategy.
LibreOffice
Red Hat has contributed multiple developers to LibreOffice, a free and open-source office suite. Nevertheless, in 2023, Red Hat declared that LibreOffice would no longer be bundled with RHEL 10, citing that it remains accessible via Flatpak on RHEL desktop installations.
Other FOSS projects
Red Hat hosts "Open Source Day" events to highlight open-source technologies from collaborators including BPM, OpenShift, Ansible, BRMS, Alfresco, CISCO, Dell, Elastic, HPE, IBM, Intel, MongoDB, OpenStack, among others.
Xorg
As a principal contributor to the X Window System, Red Hat maintains a significant role in foundational open-source infrastructure development.
Utilities and tools
Subscribers benefit from access to:
- Red Hat Developer Toolset (DTS) – tools for performance analysis and software development in C, C++, and Fortran on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
- Red Hat Software Collections (RHSCL)
In addition to flagship products, Red Hat creates utilities that improve Unix/Linux environments and serve the broader open-source community, such as:
- Disk Druid – a utility for disk partitioning
- rpm – system for package management
- sos – tools for gathering system hardware and configuration data, including sosreport
- SystemTap – a Linux kernel tracing utility developed in collaboration with IBM, Hitachi, Oracle, and Intel
- NetworkManager
Red Hat’s website emphasizes its broad engagement with free and open-source software projects. Community-driven efforts include the Pulp application designed for managing software repositories.
Red Hat Czech
Red Hat Czech s.r.o. serves as Red Hat's research and development branch located in Brno, Czech Republic. Founded in 2006, it employed 1,180 people as of 2019 and was selected due to the region's robust open-source software environment. The company expanded in 2017 by opening a second facility within Brno Technology Park to accommodate an additional 350 employees.
In fiscal year 2016, Red Hat Czech reported revenues of CZK 1,002 million, net profit of CZK 123 million, and assets totaling CZK 420 million, indicating strong financial health.
The subsidiary has been honored with awards such as "Most progressive employer of the year" in the Czech Republic (2010) and "Best Employer" for large companies by Aon in 2011, highlighting its excellence in attracting and retaining talent.
Red Hat India
Red Hat launched Red Hat India in 2000 to provide its software products, support services, and solutions tailored for the Indian market. Colin Tenwick, who previously served as VP and GM of Red Hat EMEA, emphasized that establishing this subsidiary was a strategic response to the swift increase in Red Hat Linux adoption within the region and the growing interest in open-source technologies. Collaborations with domestic firms have enabled Red Hat India to promote open-source usage extensively within government bodies and educational institutions.
By 2006, Red Hat India had developed a robust distribution framework comprising more than 70 channel partners spanning 27 cities. Notable partners included MarkCraft Solutions, Ashtech Infotech, Efensys Technologies, Embee Software, Allied Digital Services, and Softcell Technologies. Major distributors such as Integra Micro Systems and Ingram Micro played a critical role in supporting Red Hat’s expansion and increasing its market share throughout India.
Mergers and acquisitions
Red Hat's first significant acquisition was the Linux division of Delix Computer GmbH, a German company, completed on July 30, 1999.
On January 11, 2000, Red Hat made its largest purchase at that time by acquiring Cygnus Solutions, a provider of commercial support for free software, for $674 million. Michael Tiemann, co-founder of Cygnus Solutions, was appointed as Red Hat’s chief technical officer following the acquisition. Throughout 2000, Red Hat completed several acquisitions including Cygnus Solutions, Bluecurve, Wirespeed Communications, Hell's Kitchen Systems, and C2Net. Later on June 5, 2006, Red Hat acquired JBoss—a prominent open-source middleware provider—for $420 million and incorporated it as a vital division within the company.
The company’s initial divestment took place on December 14, 1998, when Intel and Netscape acquired minority stakes. This was followed by additional minority investments from Compaq, IBM, Dell, and Novell in the subsequent year.
Acquisitions
| Date | Company | Business | Country | Value (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999-07-13 | Atomic Vision | Website design | United States | — |
| 1999-07-30 | Delix Computer GmbH - Linux Div | Computers and software | Germany | — |
| 2000-01-11 | Cygnus Solutions Limited | gcc compiler tools and debugging software | United States | $674,444,000 |
| 2000-05-26 | Bluecurve | IT management software | United States | $37,107,000 |
| 2000-08-01 | Wirespeed Communications | Internet software | United States | $83,963,000 |
| 2000-08-15 | Hell's Kitchen Systems | Internet software | United States | $85,624,000 |
| 2000-09-13 | C2Net | Internet software | United States | $39,983,000 |
| 2001-02-05 | Akopia | E-commerce software | United States | — |
| 2001-02-28 | Planning Technologies | Consulting | United States | $47,000,000 |
| 2002-02-11 | ArsDigita | Assets and employees | United States | — |
| 2002-10-15 | NOCpulse | Software | United States | — |
| 2003-12-18 | Sistina Software | Global File System (GFS), Logical Volume Manager (LVM) technologies | United States | $31,000,000 |
| 2004-09-30 | Netscape Security - Certain Assets | Certain assets | United States | — |
| 2006-06-05 | JBoss | Middleware solutions | France | $420,000,000 |
| 2007-06-06 | MetaMatrix | Information management software | United States | — |
| 2007-06-19 | Mobicents | Telecommunications software | United States |
| Date | Company | Business | Country | Value (USD) |
|---|
Divestitures
| Date | Buyer | Company sold | Business segment | Country of buyer | Value (USD) | References | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Intel Corporation | Red Hat[note 1] | Open-source software | File:Flag of the United States.svg United States | — | [1] | ||
|
Compaq | Red Hat[note 2] | Open-source software | File:Flag of the United States.svg United States | — | [2] | ||
|
IBM | Red Hat[note 3] | Open-source software | File:Flag of the United States.svg United States | — | [3] | ||
|
Novell | Red Hat[note 4] | Open-source software | File:Flag of the United States.svg United States | — | [4] |
External links
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