Big Purple Hat is on as IBM closes acquisition of enterprise Linux firm

IBM has officially completed the acquisition of Red Hat for around $34bn. The deal was made public in October 2018. The official spin is that it is all about hybrid cloud. Red Hat is a specialist in packaging and supporting open-source software for enterprises, including OpenStack cloud computing, OpenShift container and …

[MrBanana]

There's a film about this

A Frankenstien type nightmare played out where the fit young bodies of new recruits to an organisation have their brains replaced with the old remnants of a forgotten age - note to all at RedHat, Get Out!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: There's a film about this

>There's a film about this

I thought it was the other way around and IBM were sacking all the old farts senior staff and replacing them with interns.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/12/11/ibm_blocking_discovery_age_discrim_evidence_says_sacked_salesman/

[MrBanana]

Re: There's a film about this

Exactly, that's why they are replacing their old fart bodies with new meat. The indoctrination will begin in 5, 4, 3, 2 .... 1.

How do I know? I got out 2 years ago.

[AdamWill]

Re: There's a film about this

I've no idea what you mean. I mean, sure, they sent me this special new hat with lots of needles in it, but they told me it was part of the new acupuncture health benefit...

[Dagg]

Re: There's a film about this

Yea, get out before they insert the borg implant.

[Howard Hanek]

It's NOT a Fairy Tale

It seems wicked Queens still cast spells and hand out poison apples.....

[STOP_FORTH]

Re: It's NOT a Fairy Tale

Then it is a fairy tale?

[John Miles]

Re: It's NOT a Fairy Tale

I am pretty certain most Fairy Tales were rather dark in their origins before becoming Disneyfied by Wilhelm Grimm and of course Disney himself.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It's NOT a Fairy Tale

In fairness to the brothers Grimm, it was mostly their editor who sanitized the stories, deeming the dark folk tales collected by the brothers unsuitable for an urban audience.

[Steve Davies 3]

Independant?

For how long eh?

I give it a year before the axe starts falling on RH Staff as $4B is clearly not enough revenue for Ginny.

Doomed I tell ye, doomed.

Just keep downloading all the RHEL source RPM's and you will be ok for a while longer.

I forsee a new company being setup by former RH bods very soon and .... well you can guess the rest.

[Alistair]

I know all the history involved

https://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/all/2018/10/28/ibm_redhat_acquisition/#c_3642684

and I know a couple of ex-Netezza folks. And I've been there, done that. What both Jim and Ginni keep going on about is that 'RedHat is a unique entity'.

I sure hope that sticks. Permanently.

[Anonymous Coward]

Abandon Ship...

Anyone thats done work on RHEL or Centos is now scrambling to get off of them. No one wants their OS held hostage by IBM.

Worse yet, Linus Torvalds seems to be going off the deepend all together, so ANY *nix platform might not be a safebet going forward.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Abandon Ship...

> [ ... ] Linus Torvalds seems to be going off the deepend all together, so ANY *nix platform might not be a safebet going forward.

Hi, Microsoft! How's it hangin' in Redmond?

[Tom 38]

Re: Abandon Ship...

We've switched all our servers to AmigaOS 1.3!

[sw guy]

Re: Abandon Ship...

Do you mean systemd is doomed ?

Not too bad eventually.

Plus, you forgot BSD family

[rcxb]

Re: Abandon Ship...

> No one wants their OS held hostage by IBM.

The whole sales pitch for RedHat/Linux is that they can't possibly hold your OS hostage. Compile the source for whatever software package into an RPM yourself, and go... I do it all the time when I need some software customized a bit differently, or (more often) newer than the ancient version found in RHEL. You can even transition over to another vendor that's compatible with RHEL, like Oracle, if you (are crazy and) would prefer. SuSE is a bit different, but not a big leap from RHEL.

[Anonymous Crowbar]

Re: Abandon Ship...

"Compile the source for whatever software package into an RPM yourself, and go... I do it all the time when I need some software customized a bit differently"

The app-streams in RHEL8 should take away a lot of that pain :P

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Abandon Ship...

"Anyone thats done work on RHEL or Centos is now scrambling to get off of them."

No they arent. Our lot build on RHEL and AIX and this merger should make billing more convenient and perhaps involve new volume discounts.

Anon cos im not permitted to publish tech stack.

[Jove]

Re: Abandon Ship...

Agreed: I do not see any major business making a platform shift in the near future simply because of this merger. Even if the work is technically feasible and straight forward, there all the issues around migrations that would have to be addressed and sufficient reason to initiate such a migration.

[Dagg]

and Red Hat will stay neutral, says IBM

Bullsh*t! That is what they told us at PwC consulting. 6 months later we were just box shifting.

[Jove]

Re: and Red Hat will stay neutral, says IBM

Each business unit is only as good as its performance in the previous quarter; teams in RedHat will discover the consequences if they do not hit targets or if the activity is no longer deemed to be in-line with Corporate strategy.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Big Purple Hat?

Hat. noun - a shaped covering for the head worn for warmth, as a fashion item, or as part of a uniform.

Helmet. noun - a hard or padded protective hat, various types of which are worn by soldiers, police officers, motorcyclists, sports players, and others.

Should Red Hatters wear Helmets for extra protection.

Purple Helmets?

[NATTtrash]

Re: Big Purple Hat?

"Do you think I’ve gone round the bend?”

“I’m afraid so. You’re mad, bonkers, completely off your head. But I’ll tell you a secret. All the best people are."

[Jove]

Signs of intent ...

Would the new organisation make available and support products for the migration of heritage stacks from mainframe to OpenStack?

Quite an ask, and I do not know if such products are already offered by IBM, but it would be indicative of intent and a statement of confidence in the new corporate ambitions.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Signs of intent ...

OpenShift these days is basically Kubernetes, the target platform for IBM's newly cloudified middleware. RH fits with IBM's public strategy.

What continually drags IBM back is not the new cloud apps, it's their insistence on bending over for every corporate customer willing to spend $Ms on supporting decades-old native systems.

[fredesmite]

Did these people ever pass math tests ?

India Business Machines purchased RH for $34B

IBM's revenue in 2018 was $79.6bn, against which Red Hat's $3.4bn

The Purple company blew 1/2 of their revenue to buy a company that makes 5% of that ?