New Red Hat CEO Thrives on Channel Partner Relationships

… services around our product. So we wouldn’t be here at all without the channel. It’s been part of the strategy from day one.

CF: How will this all work now that Red Hat was acquired by IBM last year?

IBM understands now that’s going to continue. IBM does not want to upset our strategy in the least. They do not want us to change the strategy and what we’re doing. In fact, it’s up to us to drive, but they do want us to keep on the trajectory that we’re on, which is why there is such a focus from both sides on maintaining separate [identities].

CF: So, as CEO, does this mean you will further deepen your channel partner relationships as well?

PC: For me personally, I’ve always done that since I began running the products and technology organization at Red Hat. I had the business units, which were responsible for all the business. That included product marketing and management, setting pricing and working with the field on getting it out through the channel. And then all the engineering pieces that go with it. It was actually everything from the business side of products all the way through engineering, the CTO’s office and support. So I’ve always had a history of working with the partners and the channels. I’m still very involved. But if you look at where Jim and I were — Jim probably talked to more customers than I did and I probably talked to more channel partners than he did. I did get out with a lot of customers, but I’m with the partners all the time.

CF: What are your thoughts on where business use of open source software will go in the future? Back in 2001, startups like Red Hat were still trying to explain how they could help solve business IT problems. At those early LinuxWorld conferences, companies were still wondering what Linux was and how it could one day help them. Then, by about 2004, Linux became a known commodity and the LinuxWorld events were no longer needed or held. What happened?

PC: It’s really funny, but the Red Hat Summit kind of took over for LinuxWorld. I say this all the time. Our original value proposition was about commodity. We did our marketing on RHEL at the beginning to show that we were functionally providing about 75-80% of the features, functions and benefits of UNIX for a fraction of the cost. That was our value proposition. But what happened over the last 19 years is we’ve blown through the performance of UNIX. We have the best Microsoft SQL performance of any operating system, including Windows. SQL performs better on RHEL than on Windows. Linux became so powerful and available and gained more innovations over the years. It all started to get built around Linux until you see where we’re at today, with the infrastructure, the developer environments, the tools. That’s why we’re in the incredible position that we’re in.

CF: How does Red Hat continue with that mission?

Now the value proposition is that it’s an innovation play. If you want to get the innovation, it’s coming out of the open source community in and around …