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I respectfully disagree - I'm a Red Hatter so you can take that for what it's worth. To me the 34B buys IBM the real estate in the open hybrid cloud market whic

I respectfully disagree - I'm a Red Hatter so you can take that for what it's worth. To me the 34B buys IBM the real estate in the open hybrid cloud market which Red Hat has built up in the last 5 years. That is part of a large and rapidly growing market. If IBM interferes with Red Hat they will likely squander the value of what we've built. If they foster what Red Hat did to win that critical ground then their 34B could stand to increase substantially.

ilovecaching 7y ago
They’re IBM, of course they will squander it. How do you think they went from king of the hill to grumbling behemoth that is constantly behind the times? As someone who has worked at a company like that before I can foresee continual IBM management changes until you get the right combination of buiness minded leadership that will can everything at Redhat that isn’t directly related to developing what they consider obvious money makers.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
awill 7y ago
Respectfully, I think you are being overly optimistic. I worked at a company acquired by HP several years ago. They bought us because we were beating them, and yet, they still thought they knew better, and intefered. You can guess how things ended up. I am certain IBM will think they know better than Red Hat, and will intefere. It is in their culture. The HPs and IBMs of the world no longer innovate. They acquire innovation and sqaunder it.
- chr15p 7y ago
  34billion is a lot of money to mess around with so hopefully they will at least thing twice before trying anything too dramatic, plus Jim Whitehurst (Red Hat CEO) is going to be reporting directly in to Ginni Rometty (IBM CEO) which should help provide some aircover. In the end it will probably depend on a) Red Hat continuing to grow and make money, because why would you kill a golden goose, and b) how good Jim Whitehurst is at the inevitable corporate politics
  - wayoutthere 7y ago
    At that level of a company like IBM, everyone is purely political. The CEO can’t necessarily force specific changes, and has to work with other senior executives who have clauses in their contracts that allow them to exit with huge payoffs if certain job responsibilities are taken away from them. Those senior executives (esp at IBM) have immense power; and will easily be able to kill RedHat by a thousand cuts or just parcel out the talent at the company. Just poach a few key folks internally from RedHat to lead “strategic initiatives” and backfill their roles with IBM lifers. The culture will degrade accordingly.
unionpivo 7y ago
IBM is large bureaucracy. Large bureaucracy's have a lot of managers. Managers prioritize their bonuses over long term interests of companies they work for. It would be strange and/or abnormal (as far as big co. goes), for IBM managers not to try fuck with Read Hat.
bloopernova 7y ago
I certainly don't want to argue or appear confrontational, but wanted to ask you this: Have there ever been any situations where the acquisition of a smaller company by a larger one has resulted in the smaller company remaining independent? Or has there been any positives for companies like Red Hat when they get bought? Usually I hear or read the positive-yet-bland press release talking about how wonderful this is, and how big-corp won't destroy little-corp's culture. Yet a year or less afterwards, I read stories of how everyone in little-corp has been laid off, and now little-corps applications/services are now crap. I'm a huge Fedora/CentOS/RHEL fan, and use it every opportunity I get. I'm very, very worried that Red Hat will be gutted and defiled until there's nothing left. Which is a very, very bad thing for open source because Red Hat is a huge cornerstone of OSS development and support.
- jackhack 7y ago
  I usually put it this way: "Name one company that was better after a merger." I've yet to find any affirmative answer. It's good to have hope, but it's not good to be unrealistic.
  - GuiA 7y ago
    Apple/NeXT Exception that confirms the rule though.
  - spion 7y ago
    Youtube/Google?
    - saalweachter 7y ago
      Doubleclick?
    - japanoise 7y ago
      Profitable, maybe, but better than before? No. YouTube's culture and ux have slowly been killed by Google over the years, and the platform is becoming more bland and homogenized as we speak.
coldtea 7y ago
>If IBM interferes with Red Hat they will likely squander the value of what we've built. That's an argument why IBM shouldn't interfere, not an argument why IBM won't interfere...
c3534l 7y ago
Every company in the world is told they can keep their corporate culture after an acquisition. This never actually happens, or at least I've never seen it. Optimism that they shouldn't screw up Red Hat is just not how large corporatiols operate.

ilovecaching 7y ago

They’re IBM, of course they will squander it. How do you think they went from king of the hill to grumbling behemoth that is constantly behind the times? As someone who has worked at a company like that before I can foresee continual IBM management changes until you get the right combination of buiness minded leadership that will can everything at Redhat that isn’t directly related to developing what they consider obvious money makers.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

awill 7y ago

Respectfully, I think you are being overly optimistic. I worked at a company acquired by HP several years ago. They bought us because we were beating them, and yet, they still thought they knew better, and intefered. You can guess how things ended up. I am certain IBM will think they know better than Red Hat, and will intefere. It is in their culture. The HPs and IBMs of the world no longer innovate. They acquire innovation and sqaunder it.

chr15p 7y ago
34billion is a lot of money to mess around with so hopefully they will at least thing twice before trying anything too dramatic, plus Jim Whitehurst (Red Hat CEO) is going to be reporting directly in to Ginni Rometty (IBM CEO) which should help provide some aircover. In the end it will probably depend on a) Red Hat continuing to grow and make money, because why would you kill a golden goose, and b) how good Jim Whitehurst is at the inevitable corporate politics
- wayoutthere 7y ago
  At that level of a company like IBM, everyone is purely political. The CEO can’t necessarily force specific changes, and has to work with other senior executives who have clauses in their contracts that allow them to exit with huge payoffs if certain job responsibilities are taken away from them. Those senior executives (esp at IBM) have immense power; and will easily be able to kill RedHat by a thousand cuts or just parcel out the talent at the company. Just poach a few key folks internally from RedHat to lead “strategic initiatives” and backfill their roles with IBM lifers. The culture will degrade accordingly.

unionpivo 7y ago

IBM is large bureaucracy. Large bureaucracy's have a lot of managers. Managers prioritize their bonuses over long term interests of companies they work for. It would be strange and/or abnormal (as far as big co. goes), for IBM managers not to try fuck with Read Hat.

bloopernova 7y ago

I certainly don't want to argue or appear confrontational, but wanted to ask you this: Have there ever been any situations where the acquisition of a smaller company by a larger one has resulted in the smaller company remaining independent? Or has there been any positives for companies like Red Hat when they get bought? Usually I hear or read the positive-yet-bland press release talking about how wonderful this is, and how big-corp won't destroy little-corp's culture. Yet a year or less afterwards, I read stories of how everyone in little-corp has been laid off, and now little-corps applications/services are now crap. I'm a huge Fedora/CentOS/RHEL fan, and use it every opportunity I get. I'm very, very worried that Red Hat will be gutted and defiled until there's nothing left. Which is a very, very bad thing for open source because Red Hat is a huge cornerstone of OSS development and support.

jackhack 7y ago
I usually put it this way: "Name one company that was better after a merger." I've yet to find any affirmative answer. It's good to have hope, but it's not good to be unrealistic.
- GuiA 7y ago
  Apple/NeXT Exception that confirms the rule though.
- spion 7y ago
  Youtube/Google?
  - saalweachter 7y ago
    Doubleclick?
  - japanoise 7y ago
    Profitable, maybe, but better than before? No. YouTube's culture and ux have slowly been killed by Google over the years, and the platform is becoming more bland and homogenized as we speak.

coldtea 7y ago

>If IBM interferes with Red Hat they will likely squander the value of what we've built. That's an argument why IBM shouldn't interfere, not an argument why IBM won't interfere...

c3534l 7y ago

Every company in the world is told they can keep their corporate culture after an acquisition. This never actually happens, or at least I've never seen it. Optimism that they shouldn't screw up Red Hat is just not how large corporatiols operate.