What the IBM Acquisition of Red Hat Means for Cloud Computing
Perhaps the biggest news in the cloud computing space this year, IBM purchased Red Hat for $34 billion this week. Both companies work to accelerate hybrid cloud adoption in a variety of ways. For example, each has experience working with Linux, Kubernetes, cloud management, automation, and more. Hybrid cloud adoption grows in popularity, and the move certainly emphasizes this.
Managed services also enable hybrid cloud possibilities. Ensono, for example, makes hybrid cloud and digital transformation a possibility. We spoke with Tim Beerman, CTO of Ensono, to get his take on the news. He said:
“Red Hat’s portfolio of open source software and IBM’s history of supporting the Linux operating system, this acquisition shouldn’t come as a shock, and it creates tremendous potential for innovation in hybrid IT. Many enterprises are hesitant to move to the public cloud and have difficulty choosing a platform. By adding an open source layer, companies can run and manage their workloads across multiple clouds. Hybrid cloud environments allow flexibility and more room for growth as new cloud computing capabilities enter the market, so customers will receive more competitive pricing and the ability to go to market faster.
“The success of the acquisition will greatly depend on how IBM chooses to integrate the Red Hat team with its own. It may be a smart move to bring in some of Red Hat’s talent in-house to modernize IBM’s software, while also maintaining Red Hat’s presence as a strong player in the cloud business. The investment gives Red Hat the financial backing it needs to keep a competitive edge in the market and allows it to expand its services to hybrid IT, offering more security and progressive capabilities to its customers.”
We feature Ensono in our free MSP buyer’s guide, which you can access below.
Open Source
This move is also reminiscent of Red Hat’s acquisition of CoreOS earlier this year. The key difference, though, centers around open source. Both Red Hat and CoreOS contributed to the open source community. Specifically, to the Open Container Initiative and the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. But, IBM hasn’t been much of a player in this space.
The acquisition points to a larger trend in the cloud space. “Open source is the default choice for modern IT solutions,” said Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst. Open source solutions often stand about their competition. They also introduce new possibilities for management solutions. For example, Kubernetes comes as an open source solution but has flourished due to management platforms.