Red Hat, one of the world's leading providers of open source solutions, has announced it has significantly expanded it's global channel programs, taking on a more collaborative approach with global partners to focus on joint success. The programs will enable partners to develop deeper relationships with customers, improve margins and take advantage of new revenue opportunities with open source, the company said.

Red Hat's JBoss offerings will play a key role in enabling Channel Partners by providing them with the ability to offer a broader set of open source solutions to solve customer problems. New channel programs include a robust partner program, certified service provider program, enhanced Red Hat Partner Portal and the Red Hat Subscription Center.

In the past six months, Red Hat has put global emphasis on building the channel by establishing channel development leadership around the world. Mark Enzweiler, former channel leader at Lenovo, joined Red Hat to lead North American Channel Sales in October 2006. Petra Heinrich, formerly of Novell, was appointed to develop the channel in Europe in January 2007. Most recently Masatsugu Koketsu, former Sun executive, joined the Red Hat Japan team in February 2007 to lead channel development. This newly appointed global leadership will enable Red Hat and its partners to tap into the tremendous opportunity for open source solutions and services.

Red Hat also announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire the business of MetaMatrix, a leader in data management and integration software. This market is estimated to reach $1.3B in 2007, according to Forrester Research. The consummation of the transaction is subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions to closing set forth in the acquisition agreement. Once the transaction is completed, MetaMatrix will be integrated into Red HatÆs JBoss division, the company says.

While SOA offers a cost-effective opportunity to modernize legacy infrastructures and provide true interoperability across applications and software components, it alone does not resolve data access challenges and the physical and semantic differences among disparate, physical data sources. MetaMatrix eliminates these challenges with a data services layer that decouples applications from their data sources and makes valuable data assets available as services in an SOA, freeing data from single application silos. It does this while simultaneously providing mechanisms for data consistency, security and compliance, the company says.

IDC predicts that the growth opportunity for the Linux ecosystem, including hardware, packaged software, and services aboard the Linux operating system will grow from a $15 billion opportunity in 2005 to over $40 billion in 2010. (Source: IDC, Virtualization 2.0: The Next Phase in Customer Adoption, Doc #204904, December 2006).

"Red Hat is redefining value for customers with open source as the enabler. We've redesigned our channel strategy in close collaboration with global partners in an effort to dial partners into the rapid growth opportunities for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux platform, JBoss middleware solutions, management and services," said Mark Enzweiler, vice president of channel sales at Red Hat. "Customers will benefit from streamlined processes that will make open source technology easier to consume than ever and have more choices for efficient procurement."

The new channel programs and features will be available soon around the world. Advantages include:

• Partner Investment. Red Hat is increasing its focus on Business Partners who are committed to Open Source, with its new Global Partner Program that will include: Leads for qualified partners, training benefits for RHCE and RHCA, ability to participate in Marketing Development Funds (MDF) programs for demand generation as well as other benefits for participating partners. These benefits represent a three-fold increase in value over prior years.
• Certified Service Provider Program. Announced in January 2007, the Certified Service Provider Program (CSP) is a global, invitation-only partnership. The program is designed to encourage the growth of open source service practices through collaboration between Red Hat Global Professional Services and service-oriented channel partners with open source expertise and resources.
• Red Hat Partner Portal. Red Hat's Partner Portal has been a resource for partners since 2003. Providing a single place for partners to easily and seamlessly do business with Red Hat, the portal enables partners to access leads, update profiles, request co-marketing funds, obtain sales and technical certifications and communicate with Red Hat. Red Hat is pleased to announce that the Portal will be localized in the following languages: German, French, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese.
• Red Hat Subscription Center. The Red Hat Subscription Center will make managing subscriptions simpler by making it easier for partners to renew customer subscriptions. Red Hat will serve as the 'back office' for renewals and the Center will offer services such as renewal reminders, renewal processing and will enable partners to easily participate in the annuity business that subscription sales offers by tracking all the customer renewal information and making it available to partners via the Red Hat Partner Portal.

"As a leading force in the open source marketplace, Red Hat's expanded channel program will be extremely valuable to IT resellers capitalizing on the demand for Linux and other open source solutions," said Senior Vice President, U.S. Marketing, Bob O'Malley of IT products distributor Tech Data Corp. "Red Hat is demonstrating its commitment to the channel by investing in resources, infrastructure and programs designed to help resellers grow their business. Tech Data is excited about this opportunity to further strengthen our successful relationship with Red Hat." "Red Hat's Certified Services Provider program provides Helio Solutions with incremental services revenue and new business opportunities," said Bert Condensa, executive vice president of sales at Helio Solutions. "We have experienced a measurable increase in the value we receive from Red Hat based on their enhanced focus on the Channel."

For more information on these and other Red Hat Partner programs, please visit: http://www.redhat.com

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