Thursday, 15 March 2007

Red Hat Announces Roadmap for Channel Strategy and Programs

Red Hat, a provider of open source solutions, has expanded its global channel programs, taking on a more collaborative approach with global partners to focus on joint success. The programs will enable partners to develop deeper relationships with customers, improve margins and take advantage of new revenue opportunities with open source. Red Hat's JBoss offerings will play a key role in enabling Channel Partners by providing them with the ability to offer a broader set of Open Source solutions to solve customer problems. New channel programs include a Partner Program, Certified Service Provider Program, Red Hat Partner Portal and the Red Hat Subscription Centre, the company said.

In the past six months, Red Hat has put global emphasis on building the channel by establishing channel development leadership around the world. Mark Enzweiler, former channel leader at Lenovo, joined Red Hat to lead North American Channel Sales in October 2006. Petra Heinrich, formerly of Novell, was appointed to develop the channel in Europe in January 2007. Most recently Masatsugu Koketsu, former Sun executive, joined the Red Hat Japan team in February 2007 to lead channel development. This newly appointed global leadership would enable Red Hat and its partners to tap into the tremendous opportunity for open source solutions and services.

IDC predicts that the growth opportunity for the Linux ecosystem, including hardware, packaged software and services aboard the Linux operating system will grow from a USD 15 billion opportunity in 2005 to over USD 40 billion in 2010. Red Hat is redefining value for customers with open source as the enabler.

According to the company, the advantages include:

• Partner Investment
• Certified Service Provider Program
• Red Hat Partner Portal
• Red Hat Subscription Centre