News
IBM Says Red Hat Acquisition 'Completely Changing the Cloud Landscape'
Articles about leading cloud computing providers usually contrast Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS) as the dominant frontrunner in the space, perennially chased by top competitors Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform. IBM says its newly announced acquisition of Red Hat Inc. is changing all that.
IBM and Red Hat said the acquisition will change the game in the hybrid cloud arena, which typically involves a combination of on-premises implementations with private and public cloud services.
In a news release saying the move is "completely changing the cloud landscape," Ginni Rometty, IBM chairman, president and CEO said, "The acquisition of Red Hat is a game-changer. It changes everything about the cloud market. IBM will become the world's #1 hybrid cloud provider, offering companies the only open cloud solution that will unlock the full value of the cloud for their businesses."
In a press/analyst conference call, Arvind Krishna, IBM's SVP of Hybrid Cloud, reiterated that the acquisition will make his company the world's leading hybrid cloud provider. IBM's goal, he said, "is to win in hybrid cloud, and win on the basis of open technologies, and in the end to provide a technology that makes life easier [for companies] with less complexity and a future proof investment."
While Red Hat is well known for its open source offerings, -- mainly the RHEL Linux distribution -- and work in the Java ecosystem, company exec Paul Cormier also touched on the cloud implications in that same conference call.
"Our customers are seeing open hybrid cloud as the only way to bring public cloud into their IT infrastructure, and because of our size we can't recognized the potential of that demand," he was quoted as saying in an article on sister publication ADTMag, written by John K. Waters. "IBM helps us bring that strategy to 170 countries and accelerates our vision into the market."
Several other media outlets positioned the move as a direct assault on AWS's cloud leadership, such as:
Red Hat president and CEO Jim Whitehurst predicted great things for the combined company in the ongoing cloud wars, again in the hybrid space. "Imagine us helping even more customers benefit from the choice and flexibility afforded by hybrid and multi-cloud. Joining forces with IBM offers all of that, years ahead of when we could have achieved it alone. Together we can become *the* leading hybrid cloud solutions provider."
At press time, AWS had yet to comment on the deal.
About the Author
David Ramel is an editor and writer at Converge 360.