Country for PR: United States
Contributor: PR Newswire New York
Wednesday, July 10 2019 - 04:02
AsiaNet
IBM Closes Landmark Acquisition of Red Hat for $34 Billion; Defines Open, Hybrid Cloud Future
ARMONK, New York and RALEIGH, North Carolina, July 9, 2019 /PRNewswire-AsiaNet/ --

-  Acquisition positions IBM as the leading hybrid cloud provider and 
accelerates IBM's high-value business model, extending Red Hat's open source 
innovation to a broader range of clients

-  IBM preserves Red Hat's independence and neutrality; Red Hat will strengthen 
its existing partnerships to give customers freedom, choice and flexibility

-  Red Hat's unwavering commitment to open source remains unchanged

-  Together, IBM and Red Hat will deliver next-generation hybrid multicloud 
platform

IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Red Hat announced today that they have closed the 
transaction under which IBM acquired all of the issued and outstanding common 
shares of Red Hat for $190.00 per share in cash, representing a total equity 
value of approximately $34 billion. 

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/944459/IBM_Red_Hat.jpg

The acquisition redefines the cloud market for business. Red Hat's open hybrid 
cloud technologies are now paired with the unmatched scale and depth of IBM's 
innovation and industry expertise, and sales leadership in more than 175 
countries. Together, IBM and Red Hat will accelerate innovation by offering a 
next-generation hybrid multicloud platform. Based on open source technologies, 
such as Linux and Kubernetes, the platform will allow businesses to securely 
deploy, run and manage data and applications on-premises and on private and 
multiple public clouds.

"Businesses are starting the next chapter of their digital reinventions, 
modernizing infrastructure and moving mission-critical workloads across private 
clouds and multiple clouds from multiple vendors," said Ginni Rometty, IBM 
chairman, president and CEO. "They need open, flexible technology to manage 
these hybrid multicloud environments. And they need partners they can trust to 
manage and secure these systems. IBM and Red Hat are uniquely suited to meet 
these needs. As the leading hybrid cloud provider, we will help clients forge 
the technology foundations of their business for decades to come."

"When we talk to customers, their challenges are clear: They need to move 
faster and differentiate through technology. They want to build more 
collaborative cultures, and they need solutions that give them the flexibility 
to build and deploy any app or workload, anywhere," said Jim Whitehurst, 
president and CEO, Red Hat. "We think open source has become the de facto 
standard in technology because it enables these solutions. Joining forces with 
IBM gives Red Hat the opportunity to bring more open source innovation to an 
even broader range of organizations and will enable us to scale to meet the 
need for hybrid cloud solutions that deliver true choice and agility." 

Red Hat will continue to be led by Jim Whitehurst and its current management 
team. Whitehurst is joining IBM's senior management team, reporting to Ginni 
Rometty. IBM will maintain Red Hat's headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina, 
its facilities, brands and practices. Red Hat will operate as a distinct unit 
within IBM and will be reported as part of IBM's Cloud and Cognitive Software 
segment.

Both companies have already built leading enterprise cloud businesses with 
consistent strong revenue growth by helping customers transition their business 
models to the cloud.

IBM's cloud revenue has grown from 4 percent of total revenue in 2013 to 25 
percent today. This growth comes through a comprehensive range of as-a-service 
offerings and software, services and hardware that enable IBM to advise, build, 
move and manage cloud solutions across public, private and on-premises 
environments for customers. IBM cloud revenue for the 12-month period through 
the first quarter of this year grew to over $19 billion. The Red Hat 
acquisition is expected to contribute approximately two points of compound 
annual revenue growth to IBM over a five-year period.

Red Hat's fiscal year 2019 revenue was $3.4 billion, up 15 percent 
year-over-year. Fiscal first quarter 2020 revenue, reported in June, was $934 
million, up 15 percent year-over-year. In that quarter, subscription revenue 
was up 15 percent year-over-year, including revenue from application 
development-related and other emerging technology offerings up 24 percent 
year-over-year. Services revenue also grew 17 percent. 

The Hybrid Cloud Opportunity

Digital reinvention is at an inflection point as businesses enter the next 
chapter of their cloud journey. Most enterprises today are approximately 20 
percent into their transition to the cloud. In this first chapter of their 
cloud journey, businesses made great strides in reducing costs, boosting 
productivity and revitalizing their customer-facing innovation programs. 
Chapter two, however, is about shifting mission-critical workloads to the cloud 
and optimizing everything from supply chains to core banking systems. 

To succeed in the next chapter of the cloud, businesses need to manage their 
entire IT infrastructure, on and off-premises and across different clouds – 
private and public – in a way that is simple, consistent and integrated. 
Businesses are seeking one common environment they can build once and deploy in 
any one of the appropriate footprints to be faster and more agile. IBM's 
offerings have evolved to reflect new customer needs and drive greater growth. 
The acquisition of Red Hat further strengthens IBM as the leader in hybrid 
cloud for the enterprise.

"As organizations seek to increase their pace of innovation to stay 
competitive, they are looking to open source and a distributed cloud 
environment to enable a new wave of digital innovation that wasn't possible 
before. Over the next five years, IDC expects enterprises to invest heavily in 
their journeys to the cloud, and innovation on it. A large and increasing 
portion of this investment will be on open hybrid and multicloud environments 
that enable them to move apps, data and workloads across different 
environments," said Frank Gens, Senior Vice President and Chief Analyst, IDC. 
"With the acquisition of Red Hat, and IBM's commitment to Red Hat's 
independence, IBM is well positioned to help enterprises differentiate 
themselves in their industry by capitalizing on open source in this emerging 
hybrid and multicloud world."

The collective ability of IBM and Red Hat to unlock the true value of hybrid 
cloud for businesses is already resonating among customers moving to the next 
chapter of digital reinvention. 

"Delta is constantly exploring current and emerging technology as we transform 
the air travel experience," said Ed Bastian, CEO, Delta. "We've been working 
with both IBM and Red Hat for years to deliver on that goal, and as they 
together build the next generation IT company, they will be an essential part 
of our digital transformation."

"As a long-standing partner of Red Hat and IBM, we look forward to capabilities 
that these two companies will bring together," said Michael Poser, Managing 
Director and Chief Information Officer, Enterprise Technology & Services, 
Morgan Stanley. "We know first-hand how important and impactful cloud 
technology contributes to unlocking business value."

IBM Reinforces Commitment to Open Source and Red Hat Neutrality

IBM and Red Hat have deep open source values and experience. The two companies 
have worked together for more than 20 years to make open source the default 
choice for modern IT solutions. This includes the importance of open governance 
and helping open source projects and communities flourish through continued 
contribution.

With Red Hat, IBM has acquired one of the most important software companies in 
the IT industry. Red Hat's pioneering business model helped bring open source – 
including technologies like Linux, Kubernetes, Ansible, Java, Ceph and many 
more – into the mainstream for enterprises. Today, Linux is the most used 
platform for development. Red Hat Enterprise Linux alone is expected to 
contribute to more than $10 trillion worth of global business revenues in 2019. 
By 2023, an additional 640,000 people are expected to work in Red Hat-related 
jobs. 

IBM has committed to scaling and accelerating open source and hybrid cloud for 
businesses across industries, as well as preserving the independence and 
neutrality of Red Hat's open source heritage. This includes its open source 
community leadership, contributions and development model; product portfolio, 
services, and go-to-market strategy; robust developer and partner ecosystems, 
and unique culture. 

Red Hat's mission and unwavering commitment to open source will remain 
unchanged, and Red Hat will continue to offer the choice and flexibility 
inherent to open source and hybrid IT environments. Red Hat also will continue 
to build and expand its partnerships, including those with major cloud 
providers, such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and 
Alibaba.

IBM and Red Hat also share a strong commitment to social responsibility and a 
sense of purpose for applying technology and expertise to help address some of 
the world's most significant societal challenges. Together, the two companies 
have committed to expanding this longstanding commitment through new joint 
initiatives, addressing education and skills, civic and societal needs and 
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) workforce development. For 
more information visit: 
https://ibm.com/blogs/corporate-social-responsibility/2019/07/be-open-and-change-the-world/.


For more information on today's news, visit: https://newsroom.ibm.com/ and 
https://www.ibm.com/redhat.

About IBM
For more information about IBM, visit https://www.ibm.com.

About Red Hat, Inc.
Red Hat is the world's leading provider of enterprise open source software 
solutions, using a community-powered approach to deliver reliable and 
high-performing Linux, hybrid cloud, container, and Kubernetes technologies. 
Red Hat helps customers integrate new and existing IT applications, develop 
cloud-native applications, standardize on our industry-leading operating 
system, and automate, secure, and manage complex environments. Award-winning 
support, training, and consulting services make Red Hat a trusted adviser to 
the Fortune 500. As a strategic partner to cloud providers, system integrators, 
application vendors, customers, and open source communities, Red Hat can help 
organizations prepare for the digital future.

Contacts
IBM 
Media Contact: 
Vineeta Durani
+1 347-982-4803
vineeta.durani@us.ibm.com
or
Investor Relations:
Patricia Murphy
+1 914-499-5800
pamurphy@us.ibm.com

Red Hat, Inc. 
Media Contact: 
Stephanie Wonderlick
+1 571-421-8169
swonderl@redhat.com

SOURCE  IBM
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