business
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TALKING
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business model compared to your typical
software vendor in the marketplace.
How has cloud computing opened up
opportunities for Red Hat?
It definitely has. What we are seeing from
a Red Hat perspective is that organisations
definitely want to be able to leverage
the cloud. From the Red Hat perspective,
certainly at an enterprise level we are seeing
the world become very much a hybrid cloud
environment. What that means is an added
degree of complexity.
We do have a number of different solutions
that enable an enterprise, public sector
(organisation) or even a telco to manage that
hybrid cloud environment, again available in
open-source technology but fully supported
on a subscription basis from Red Hat.
One of our core missions from a Red Hat
perspective is to be the world’s leading
provider of open source hybrid cloud
solutions. That is something that we are
going to actively pursue as we go forward.
How have your customers changed
over the last 25 years?
I think there has been a considerable
evolution. First of all there is the breadth
of what is available from an open source
perspective. The diversification of customers
has come as a result. Even today people say
‘oh Red Hat, you are the guys who do Linux.’
As Linux has gained traction it has given
customers the confidence to look at the
different forms of open source software which
“
THERE IS AN
INCREASING
ACCEPTANCE OF
OPEN SOURCE-
BASED SOFTWARE
IN THE MARKET.
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INTELLIGENTCIO
is available. Customers are now looking at
things like open source middleware, to link
up their different business applications, and
they have looked at open source software to
deliver effective solutions.
Many enterprises are looking at what they
do with the cloud, as companies look at
modernising their applications, all of these
areas are available in open source solutions.
What we have seen over the last probably
three years is an acceleration of adoption
of these solutions. We have seen that
acceleration increasing as confidence in
open source increases.
According to industry analyst firm
IDC, non-traditional developers are
expected to build 20% of business
applications and 30% of new
application features by 2021. Why
is this?
As awareness of community development
ramps up you will see greater momentum
with open source platforms. There is
increasing awareness of customer adoption,
whether they are public or private sector.
When I travel around my region I am often
asked to visit colleges and universities who
have traditionally run training courses
around Microsoft. We are being asked ‘what
can you do to help us set up a curriculum
around open source technologies?’ There
is a similar sort of ask coming from the
customers that we work with. We are finding
there is a demand from banking institutions,
for example, to become more agile and
innovate at a much faster pace. As more and
more people become educated and trained
you are going to see an acceleration.
How does Red Hat’s Open Culture
promote innovation?
One of the key mantras that is continually
articulated is continuing to maintain the
culture of Red Hat. The culture of Red Hat is
about openness so we have all these projects
where we have multiple contributors so we
are encouraged to challenge the norm about
how a product is developed, how we market,
how we develop our partner programmes.
We are encouraged, in a structured way, to
feel free to voice our opinion for employees
to have an open dialogue. The interesting
thing about open source software
development is it is a meritocracy. If you
have an idea on a bit of code that you think
is a good addition to the Linux operating
system, it is discussed and evaluated by
the community who are developing that
particular product. It’s refreshing to be in
that environment.
What are the advantages of Open
Source Technology compared to
Proprietary Software Technology?
Given the nature of the community-based
development what we experience is a level
of innovation ahead of that of a proprietary
based development path. Proprietary
software vendors release new versions
of software primarily to suit themselves.
The development of software from an
open source environment runs ahead of
a proprietary environment so innovation
is really there. If we look at this from a
commercial perspective you can download
a variety of different open source software
solutions with the reassurance that you have
got support if you come to an organisation
like Red Hat through subscription.
We are not the guardians of intellectual
property, we release the code once we have
been through it and it is available for anyone
to use. What we provide is a subscription
and the subscription provides you with the
confidence of the certification etc. As a
commercial model what we are finding is
this is much more cost effective because
this is an annual subscription so you are not
having to buy a license and then have to buy
support. You literally download the software
and you’ve got all the support.
Back to my part of the world which is a
territory which is primarily oil dependent.
We’ve gone through the decline of oil prices
and where we have seen expenditure decline
because of budget constraints we have
actually benefited. We can go to a customer
and say ‘Do you actually want to be paying
hundreds of thousands in licence fees and
then pay for support on top of that or would
you rather look at an innovative option where
you simply buy a subscription to support
that infrastructure and reduce your on-going
OPEX’. As the confidence in open source
increases then we are seeing more and more
organisations, such as big gas companies and
ministries, moving in this direction. n
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