| Red Hat CEO: We're like Facebook |
Aug. 26, 2009
 In an eWEEK interview, Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst says his company is "defining a whole new business model" by applying collaborative principles similar to those behind Facebook and Wikipedia. Whitehurst speaks out on open source business models, RHEL 5.4's KVM hypervisor, and the cloud.
The Whitehurst interview, conducted by eWEEK's Chris Preimesberger, arrives as the Linux distribution and services giant preps for its annual Red Hat Summit on Sept. 1-4 in Chicago. The company is expected to make a major announcement about Red Hat Linux Enterprise (RHEL), writes Preimesberger.
Jim Whitehurst (pictured at top) is finishing up his second year as CEO of "the world's most commercially successful open-source software company," says Preimesberger's story in our sister publication, eWEEK. Indeed, Red Hat is red-hot in these recessionary dog days. In 2008, the Raleigh, North Carolina-based company had revenues totaling $652 million, up $129 million over the previous year, which was up $123 million over the year before that, writes Preimesberger.
In a recent SEC filing, Microsoft recently added the company, along with up-and-coming desktop Linux competitor Canonical, to its list of rivals. Burdened by the recession, companies are increasingly turning to more affordable open source software, yet the collaborative advantages of open source, as well as Red Hat's services-oriented business model are also behind the surge, Whitehurst suggests in the interview.
"Open source is nothing but a specific instance of the power of participation," he is quoted as saying. "It's applying the power of participation as Facebook or Wikipedia do, specific to computer source code."
"As information becomes free, it becomes more valuable. We're passionate about this," Whitehurst is quoted as saying. "We're probably defining at least 'a' new business model, and hopefully we can continue to innovate and come up with new business models around it."
RHEL 5.4 pushes KVM hypervisor
Last month Red Hat released a beta of RHEL 5.4 (see link at end of story), which offers full support for the KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) hypervisor. Other enhancements are said to include cluster improvements, new graphics drivers, laptop docking support, ALSA audio infrastructure, improved Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) enablement, security and tools enhancements, and a host of general Linux kernel improvements.
Speaking of KVM, Whitehurst says the hypervisor offers the advantage of rapid hardware enablement for large hardware manufacturers. "We don't have to do it," he is quoted as saying. "When it [RHEL 5.4] ships in the fall, it will have a larger base of certified hardware on Day 1 than [VMware] ESX does today."
Other KVM benefits touted by Whitehurst include "a full operating system -- so you can run some apps on bare metal and some virtualized on the same box," he says. "Third, by running a guest on Linux, you inherit literally thousands of man-years of code."
Cloud strategy comes naturally
Whitehurst responds to questions about Red Hat's cloud strategy by saying that while the company didn't go out and "form a 'cloud' unit," RHEL's layered architecture and application mobility are both optimally suited for use with cloud infrastructure.
As for Canonical, another Linux distribution firm that has begun dabbling with cloud computing, he acknowledges that Ubuntu has been making inroads into the data center in some sectors, but insists that Red Hat offers a unique combination of software and services that is unlikely to be matched.
"The capabilities required to come out with a good distribution are vastly different from building a business model around an enterprise edition," Whitehurst is quoted as saying. "There are no other materially sized, profitable open source software companies."
Finally, Whitehurst refrains from answering a question about Red Hat's long-time partner Oracle, which is expected to complete its $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun this fall. Previous to the Sun move, Oracle had been rumored by some to be considering a takeover of Red Hat.
Availability
The Jim Whitehurst interview with eWEEK's Chris Preimesberger may be found here.
More information and download instructions for Red Hat's RHEL v5 beta may be found here.
For more information on the Red Hat Summit, go here.
-- Eric Brown
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