Red Hat
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| Red Hat, Inc. | |
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| Type | Public (NYSE:RHT) |
| Founded | 1995 |
| Headquarters | Raleigh, North Carolina, USA |
| Key people | Matthew Szulik, Chairman Jim Whitehurst, CEO Bob Young, Founder Marc Ewing, Founder |
| Industry | Computer software |
| Products | Red Hat Enterprise Linux Red Hat Directory Server Red Hat Certificate System Fedora |
| Revenue | ▲$400.6 million USD (2007) |
| Employees | ~2200 (April 2007) |
| Website | http://www.redhat.com |
Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT) is a company dedicated to free and open source software, and a major Linux distribution vendor. Red Hat was founded in 1995 and has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina with satellite offices worldwide.[1]
The company is best known for its enterprise operating system Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and more recently through the acquisition of open source enterprise middleware vendor JBoss. Red Hat provides operating system platforms along with middleware, applications, and management solutions, as well as support, training, and consulting services.
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[edit] History
In 1993 Bob Young incorporated the ACC Corporation, a catalog business that sold Linux and UNIX software accessories. Then in 1994 Marc Ewing created his own Linux distribution, which he named Red Hat Linux. Ewing released it in October, and it became known as the Halloween release. Young bought Ewing's business in 1995, and the two merged to become Red Hat Software with Young serving as CEO.
Red Hat went public on August 11, 1999, the eighth-biggest first-day gain in Wall Street history.[citation needed] Matthew Szulik succeeded Bob Young as CEO in November of that year.
On November 15, 1999, Red Hat acquired Cygnus Solutions. Cygnus provided commercial support for free software and housed maintainers of GNU software products such as GNU Debugger and GNU Binutils. One of the founders, Michael Tiemann, served as the chief technical officer of Red Hat and now serves as the vice president of open source affairs. Later it acquired WireSpeed, C2Net and Hell's Kitchen Systems.
In February 2000, InfoWorld awarded Red Hat with its fourth consecutive “Operating System Product of the Year” award for Red Hat Linux 6.1. Red Hat acquired Planning Technologies, Inc in 2001 and in 2004 AOL's iPlanet directory and certificate server software.
Company headquarters were moved from Durham, NC, to N.C. State University's Centennial Campus in Raleigh, North Carolina in February of 2002.
The following March Red Hat introduced the first enterprise-class Linux operating system[citation needed]: Red Hat Advanced Server, later named Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Dell, IBM, HP and the Oracle Corporation announced their support of the platform.[citation needed]
In December of 2005 CIO Insight Magazine conducted their annual Vendor Value Survey, where Red Hat ranked #1 in value for the second year in a row.
Red Hat stock was added to the NASDAQ-100 on December 19, 2005.
Red Hat acquired open source middleware provider JBoss on June 5, 2006 and JBoss became a division of Red Hat. In 2007 it acquired MetaMatrix and made an agreement with Exadel to distribute its software.
On September 18, 2006, Red Hat released the Red Hat Application Stack, the first certified stack integrating JBoss technology.
On December 12, 2006, Red Hat moved from NASDAQ (RHAT) to the New York Stock Exchange (RHT).
On 2007-03-15 Red Hat released Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, and in June, they acquired Mobicents.
On 2008-03-13, Red Hat acquired Amentra, a provider of systems integration services for SOA, business process management, systems development and enterprise data solutions. Amentra operates as an independent Red Hat company.
[edit] Fedora Project
The Fedora Project is a Red Hat-sponsored, community-supported open-source project. Its stated goal is to promote the rapid progress of free and open-source software and content, and its rapid innovation is possible using open processes and public forums.[citation needed]
The project is led by the Fedora Project Board, which comprises community leaders and Red Hat members, and this group steers the direction of the project and of Fedora, the Linux distribution it develops. Red Hat employees work with the code alongside community members, and many Fedora Project innovations make their way into new releases of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
[edit] Business model
Red Hat partly operates on a professional open-source business model based on open code, community development, professional quality assurance services, and subscription-based customer support.
Developers take the open source Linux kernel and adapt and improve it to fit certain needs. The code they write is open, so more programmers can make further adaptations and improvements. When a problem is found, an entire community of users can come together to find a solution.[2]
Red Hat sells subscriptions to the support, training, and integration services that help customers in using the open source software. Customers pay one set price for access to services such as Red Hat Network and up to 24x7 support, and they receive unlimited access to these services.
[edit] Programs and projects
[edit] One Laptop per Child
Red Hat engineers work with the One Laptop per Child initiative, a non-profit organization created by members of the MIT Media Lab. The mission is to create an inexpensive laptop and provide every child in the world access to open communication, open knowledge, and open learning. The XO-1 laptop is the latest machine of this project. The machines run a slimmed-down version of Fedora as the operating system.
[edit] Mugshot
Red Hat sponsors Mugshot, an open project that is creating "a live social experience" based around entertainment. It refocuses technological thinking from objects (files, folders, etc) to activities, like web browsing or music sharing.[citation needed] These topics are the focus of the first two features in Mugshot, Web Swarm and Music Radar. These were already underway when the project was announced at the 2006 Red Hat Summit.
[edit] Dogtail
Dogtail is an open source automated GUI test framework. It was initially developed by Red Hat, and is free software released under the GPL. It is written in Python and allows developers to build and test their applications. Red Hat announced the release of Dogtail at the 2006 Red Hat Summit.
[edit] Red Hat Magazine
Red Hat Magazine, is the online news publication produced by Red Hat. It brings together issues of interest from inside and outside of the company, focusing on in-depth discussion of the development and application of open source technologies. It covers news from Red Hat and the Fedora Project, it updates readers on public licensing and the Creative Commons, and it features interviews with some industry leaders and open source people.
Under the Brim was the company's original newsletter. Wide Open Magazine was first published in March 2004 as a means for Red Hat to share technical content with subscribers on a regular basis. Under the Brim and Wide Open Magazine merged in November of 2004 to become Red Hat Magazine.
[edit] Red Hat Exchange
Red Hat recently announced that it has reached an agreement with major free software / open source (FOSS) companies that will allow them to make a distribution portal called Red Hat Exchange, which will resell FOSS software with the original branding intact.[3].
[edit] Competitors
Some of Red Hat's main competitors are Canonical Ltd., Mandriva, Microsoft, Novell, Oracle Corporation and Xandros.
[edit] References
- ^ Corporate Facts. redhat.com. Retrieved on 2006-08-26.
- ^ The Meaning of Open Source (July 3, 2008).
- ^ Red Hat Prepares Business Application Stacks [1]
[edit] External links
- Red Hat official web page
- Red Hat documentation
- Red Hat contributions to Free and Open Source software
- Red Hat High
- Red Hat release dates
- English translation of Enfasys interview with Julian Somodi, Red Hat's General Manager, Southern Cone
- Szulik Says Red Hat Will Have Half of Enterprise Servers by 2015, IT Business Edge
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