IBM Wraps Red Hat Acquisition, ‘Not Talking About Layoffs’

… an open-source model,” said Cormier. That just continues. I don’t even think IBM will have an opinion on what our culture should be.

And for channel partners of both companies, the messages from both Cormier and Krishna were clear — each company will continue to utilize its own independent channel partner network and will not impede on the other.

IBM’s Arvind Krishna

“Both companies have sales forces and both have channel programs, and it will remain that way,” said Krishna. “We would love every possible partner to be partners for both, but they are not becoming one.”

Most importantly, the acquisition is not about cost synergies between the two companies, he continued.

“We are not talking about layoffs. We’re not talking about any of those things. This acquisition is about all of our revenue synergy and growth going forward.”

For customers, the benefits of the paired companies revolves around their combined capabilities for helping with hybrid cloud and multicloud environments, said Krishna. “Clearly, clients are seeing the benefit that this is going to bring going forward. I think it’s the same way as Linux accelerated over the last 20 years, by being a business that was small – you had a few developers playing around with it – to where it now is on a majority of servers in the entire world.”

Mark Enzweiler, senior vice president of global channels and alliances for Red Hat, told Channel Futures that the two companies have been telling partners and customers for months that Red Hat’s continuing independence will be an important result of the acquisition.

Red Hat and IBM partners who are today not partners with the other company will have opportunities to seek those mutual partnerships if they desire, he said, but it will be up to them. Some partners have made inquiries about how they might apply to expand those arrangements, he said.

“We both have a process in place and if you want to be partner of the other then you come in, fill out your skills application and each [IBM global region] makes the decisions on who they will bring in,” said Enzweiler. “I think that process is pretty well understood. No problem, there’s a way for you to become a Red Hat or IBM partner. I’ve been in this partner business for around 30 years and I feel really good about how this is coming together.”

Tim Beerman, chief technology officer at Ensono, an MSP specializing in hybrid IT infrastructure, told Channel Futures that as a partner of both companies, he sees the finalization of the IBM-Red Hat deal as, well, a big deal.

Ensono’s Tim Beerman

“I see that as very positive,” especially if IBM can leave Red Hat alone to continue to do its work in open source software and Linux, he said.

One benefit of the deal is that it could result in Red Hat getting more money to do research and development.

“There are pros and cons to being a part of a big company. It could be very positive if there is increased investment from IBM,” he said.

Beerman said he doesn’t anticipate any significant downsides to the deal, other than the remote possibility that Red Hat could somehow get sucked into driving IBM’s internal needs.

“I don’t think that IBM will let that happen,” he added. “We’ll see where IBM takes it now and where the market will move with us.”

Several IT analysts continue to see …