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IBM To Buy Red Hat, the Top Linux Distributor, For $34 Billion (bloomberg.com)

International Business Machines (IBM) is acquiring software maker Red Hat in a deal valued at $34 billion, the companies said Sunday. From a report: The purchase, announced on Sunday afternoon, is the latest competitive step among large business software companies to gain an edge in the fast-growing market for Internet-style cloud computing. In June, Microsoft acquired GitHub, a major code-sharing platform for software developers, for $7.5 billion. IBM said its acquisition of Red Hat was a move to open up software development on computer clouds, in which software developers write applications that run on remote data centers. From a press release: This acquisition brings together the best-in-class hybrid cloud providers and will enable companies to securely move all business applications to the cloud. Companies today are already using multiple clouds. However, research shows that 80 percent of business workloads have yet to move to the cloud, held back by the proprietary nature of today's cloud market. This prevents portability of data and applications across multiple clouds, data security in a multi-cloud environment and consistent cloud management.

IBM and Red Hat will be strongly positioned to address this issue and accelerate hybrid multi-cloud adoption. Together, they will help clients create cloud-native business applications faster, drive greater portability and security of data and applications across multiple public and private clouds, all with consistent cloud management. In doing so, they will draw on their shared leadership in key technologies, such as Linux, containers, Kubernetes, multi-cloud management, and cloud management and automation. IBM's and Red Hat's partnership has spanned 20 years, with IBM serving as an early supporter of Linux, collaborating with Red Hat to help develop and grow enterprise-grade Linux and more recently to bring enterprise Kubernetes and hybrid cloud solutions to customers. These innovations have become core technologies within IBM's $19 billion hybrid cloud business. Between them, IBM and Red Hat have contributed more to the open source community than any other organization.

7 of 398 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I don't get this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think it's more for Red Hat's cloud infrastructure, than the Linux distro itself.

  2. Re:Damn. by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm going to have to switch to Ubuntu.

    Why? Is there some specific IBM behavior you object to? If so, please explain it here.

    If it’s just a dislike of corporate involvement with Linux... Red Hat was the wrong distro for you in the first place.

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  3. Re: Damn. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    IBM license fees are predatory. Plus they require you to install agents on your servers for the sole purpose of calculating use and licenses. IBM exploits workers by offshoring and are slow to fix bugs and critical CVEs (WAS and DB2 especially)

  4. Re:Please God No by gtall · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "A lot of people are going to want the stable paycheck of working for IBM instead of trying to start a new company. "

    Errrrmmm....I see you haven't been getting the memos. IBM has been bleeding their U.S. personal as fast as they can. Red Hatters would do well to eyeball their exit strategies.

  5. Goodbye Redhat. by The+Evil+Atheist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    IBM acquisitions never go well. All companies acquired by IBM go through a process of "Blue washing", in which the heart and soul of the acquired company is ripped out, the body burnt, and the remaining ashes to be devoured and defecated by its army of clueless salesmen and consultants. It's a sad, and infuriating, repeated pattern. They no longer develop internal talent. They drive away the remaining people left over from the time when they still did develop things. They think they can just buy their way into a market or technology, somehow completely oblivious to the fact that their strategy of firing all their acquired employees/knowledge and hoping to sell software they have no interest in developing would somehow still retain customers. They literally could have just reshuffled and/or hired more developers to work on the kernel, but the fact they didn't shows they have no intention of actually contributing.

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    Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
  6. Re: It all by cayenne8 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    So, sadly, I"M guessing IBM will acquire and fuck up RHEL just like they've done with every other tool they've bought and "IBM-ized"......

    :(

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    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  7. Re:A Cloudy argument. by The+Evil+Atheist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    IBM engineers aren't actually crappy. It's the fucking MBAs in management who have no clue about how to run a software development company. Their engineers will want to do good work, but management will worry more about headcount and sales.

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    Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.