Red Hat CEO Whitehurst: Open Source Better, Faster
After a year as its head, Jim Whitehurst has issued a financial assessment of the Red Hat Linux distro and spoke of its future plans. He sees the company braced for success, with an advantage over its proprietary competitors, thanks to Open Source.
Whitehurst quotes increased sales in 2008 for Red Hat, with a clear nod to a continuing rosy future with Open Source. Not to be over-modest, he calls his recent press release the "State of the Union at Red Hat." The yearly results gave him reason for optimism: "In fiscal year 2008, Red Hat became the first open source vendor to cross the $500 million mark in revenues and we’ve also maintained 27 consecutive quarters of sequential growth in total revenue." In December he had already prognosticated opportunities for Open Source despite the current economic climate in an interview with Linux Magazine Online. He now sees his forecast confirmed: "With the current economic downturn, IT budgets are shrinking while expectations for performance, quality and innovation continue to grow... I continue to see great opportunities for... the open source community."
It is just this community of proponents of a steady give-and-take that the former CEO of Delta Airlines considers the crux of the competitive advantage: "I’ve met with customers and partners all over the world during the past 13 months and have heard great stories about companies who are not only consumers of Red Hat and open source, but who have also contributed back." Whitehurst plans to use these relationships "to develop solutions that serve real needs and solve real problems." He acknowledges that two Red Hat acquisitions were particularly welcome in this respect: virtualization vendor Qumranet in September 2008 and system integrator Amentra earlier in March of that year. Whitehurst summarizes with, "While Red Hat may be small in comparison to the proprietary giants we challenge, our open source culture promotes the free exchange of ideas and enables us to deliver better software, faster."
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Fedora 40 Beta Released Soon
With the official release of Fedora 40 coming in April, it's almost time to download the beta and see what's new.
-
New Pentesting Distribution to Compete with Kali Linux
SnoopGod is now available for your testing needs
-
Juno Computers Launches Another Linux Laptop
If you're looking for a powerhouse laptop that runs Ubuntu, the Juno Computers Neptune 17 v6 should be on your radar.
-
ZorinOS 17.1 Released, Includes Improved Windows App Support
If you need or desire to run Windows applications on Linux, there's one distribution intent on making that easier for you and its new release further improves that feature.
-
Linux Market Share Surpasses 4% for the First Time
Look out Windows and macOS, Linux is on the rise and has even topped ChromeOS to become the fourth most widely used OS around the globe.
-
KDE’s Plasma 6 Officially Available
KDE’s Plasma 6.0 "Megarelease" has happened, and it's brimming with new features, polish, and performance.
-
Latest Version of Tails Unleashed
Tails 6.0 is based on Debian 12 and includes GNOME 43.
-
KDE Announces New Slimbook V with Plenty of Power and KDE’s Plasma 6
If you're a fan of KDE Plasma, you'll be thrilled to hear they've announced a new Slimbook with an AMD CPU and the latest version of KDE Plasma desktop.
-
Monthly Sponsorship Includes Early Access to elementary OS 8
If you want to get a glimpse of what's in the pipeline for elementary OS 8, just set up a monthly sponsorship to help fund its continued existence.
-
DebConf24 to be Held in South Korea
Busan will be the location of the latest DebConf running July 28 through August 4