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 $34 billion.
The acquisition redefines the cloud market for business. Red Hat's open hybrid cloud technologies are now paired with the unmatched scale and depth of IBM's innovation and industry expertise, and sales leadership in more than 175 countries. Together, IBM and Red Hat will accelerate innovation by offering a next-generation hybrid multicloud platform. Based on open source technologies, such as Linux and Kubernetes, the platform will allow businesses to securely deploy, run and manage data and applications on-premises and on private and multiple public clouds.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 09 2019, @11:45PM (6 children)
What does this add to the summary? Why was it added to the original submission?
(Score: 5, Touché) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday July 09 2019, @11:57PM (4 children)
I think what they meant to say is that the new combination will synergistically parallel task cross-media adoption and objectively unleash e-business initiatives.
They might also compellingly expedite client-centric storage. I am unsure of this, but they will certainly credibly productize accurate architectures and synergistically mesh user friendly synergy.
(Score: 5, Funny) by krishnoid on Wednesday July 10 2019, @12:36AM (1 child)
I was going to shame you for how deceptively coherent-sounding that was, but I'll leave a pointer to the musical version [youtu.be] instead.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @06:16AM
Wow! That's brilliant!
Great "ideation!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @01:20AM (1 child)
Where is the Leverage?
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday July 10 2019, @01:31AM
Shit!.
Um, they're going to leverage a paradigm shift?
Whew! I think I got away with it.
(Score: 1) by DECbot on Tuesday July 09 2019, @11:57PM
Buzzword bingo. Come pickup your card...
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by legont on Wednesday July 10 2019, @12:26AM (8 children)
Redhat's max chart is a nice one to reflect upon.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Fluffeh on Wednesday July 10 2019, @01:12AM (6 children)
You mean to say this will follow the general pattern of:
1) Disruptive Company bought by monolith while shares are high.
2) Company flounders in new hands and share price tumbles while company is gutted and falls apart.
3) Formerly disruptive company is sold for cents on the dollar or just mothballed.
4) Original Monolith is still monolith as disruptive company no longer exists.
Cause yes, I'd say this is right up there in probability.
(Score: 2) by legont on Wednesday July 10 2019, @01:29AM
While I appreciate your scenario, I was mostly meditating on the high of 130 or so back in December 1999 and what happened after that. I vividly remember as I participated in the game.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday July 10 2019, @01:33AM (3 children)
What is the chances of a whole bunch of disgruntled Red Hat people forking it off, presumably from CentOS and starting again?
When IBM begin the layoffs there will be no shortage of them looking for something else to do.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @03:00AM (2 children)
For example, why would Lennart Poettering leave or be sacked? Has he really run out of ideas to make Linux worse?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @03:34AM
Unfortunately, you are right.
When Linux first got really popular in 1995, I had high hopes for it improving to become a superior technology.
It unfortunately stayed at mostly the same level of mediocrity with lots of churn (from guys like Poettering) that doesn't seem to move it forward.
It's still wonderful to have an alternative to Microsoft's OSes, but it's far from a jewel, and it will stay that way forever.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @04:59PM
GNU(GNU's Not Unix)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday July 10 2019, @12:04PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @03:06PM
Shouldn't that be BigBlueHat?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @04:07AM
Never seen a cloud walk so damn slow with its tail between its legs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @04:11AM (1 child)
IBM and potter-ass, together, they will clusterfuck linux in a way M$ never could.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @08:56AM
Are you sure Microsoft hasn't been paying for the ass-raping Redhat has inflicted across the main distros in the last few years?
Minimum input, maximum damage.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @04:53AM (4 children)
Interesting comment on hackernews:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20392239 [ycombinator.com]
IBM's execs have a history of initiating layoffs solely to boost share price-- to the point that long-term viability of those areas of the company were severely damaged. There might be a blood bath at the former Redhat. Especially if IBM is only interested in Redhat's cloud business.
I suppose they could pull an Oracle and try to extract more money out of Redhat's existing customers like Oracle tried to do with Sun's customers. If it goes down the same way, they will be former Redhat customers just like Oracle ended up losing former Sun customers due to their changes.
It seems the least likely outcome will be Redhat increasing its revenues to make up the shortfall in those interest payments by just attracting new business.
If Redhat fails, I wonder if the loss of the developers being paid by Redhat will be a greater negative than the positive effects of ridding the community of a corporate behemoth that has been trying more and more to dictate direction of development to suit their commercial interests at the expense of the needs/wants of the rest of the community. Of course, if they succeed, we just traded in for an even larger behemoth.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @05:00AM (2 children)
I'm told Red Hat is a good employer, but as a Linux user, I despise Red Hat. I won't shed a tear if Red Hat gets extinguished.
Ok, I will throw a keg party if Red Hat is extinguished.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by r_a_trip on Wednesday July 10 2019, @08:55AM (1 child)
Be careful what you wish for. While Red Hat is by no means an angel, if they fall by the way side, there aren't many to fill that void. I would dread the situation of Canonical swooping in to fill that void and "start leading" in the Linux world. At least Red Hat has consistency and follow through, unlike the "throw spaghetti at the wall" methodology of Canonical.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @03:14PM
I believe RedHat has significant business with DOD. That and the cloud are most likely the reasons for IBM's interest.
(Score: 3, Funny) by hendrikboom on Wednesday July 10 2019, @02:59PM
Suppose, just suppose, they were to do that to the systemd gang.