Three letters... D.O.D.
Big Blue is in the midst of an evaluation for a massive cloud contract with the government. Google wants no part of it (for political reasons), Oracle is... Oracle & POTUS has no love for Amazon. This Leaves Microsoft, IBM and some minnows. Trump likes IBM for nostalgic reasons but the DOD knows that they are not ready for prime time. So to slice the baby so to speak, the DOD probably told IBM that they will get the contract but ONLY if they buy Red-Hat (a reputable player in the cloud). I would not be surprised in the least if most government + DOD contracts go straight to Big Blue from this point onwards. After all, that's 20 years of guaranteed profits/revenue.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
