Red Hat Takes Aim at Vertical Expansion with Partners

Investments for channel partners in ASEAN focus on creating greater sustainability and innovation in ecosystem

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. – May 14, 2013 – Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced its channel partner ecosystem strategy and key focus for the ASEAN regions. Red Hat’s global channel business has grown over the past four years with channel bookings at 53 percent of total bookings in FY08 to 60 percent in FY12 and most recently, 62 percent for FY13.

Opportunities in Malaysia
Malaysia’s IT industry is expected to have a US$10 billion economy in 2013, according to research and market intelligence firm, IDC . When Digital Malaysia was announced in 2012, the programme outlined the strategies to create an ecosystem to help drive innovation and growth .

(L-R) Damien Wong, General Manager for ASEAN, Red Hat Inc preset a token of appreciation to Steven Rosen, Director of IT at YTL Communications Sdn Bhd during Red Hat’s business update media briefing here in Kuala Lumpur.

According to Damien Wong, general manager, ASEAN, Red Hat, “We believe that businesses will continue to adopt open source solutions as the mainstream technology that not only liberates resources, but at the same time, provides an IT infrastructure that is secure, robust, and agile.” YTL Communications Sdn Bhd, a telecommunications subsidiary of YTL Power International Berhad in Malaysia, shared recently at a press conference that their company has achieved greater efficiency in services and cost-savings on their IT infrastructure, after leveraging Red Hat’s open source solutions.

Investments in Channel Partner Ecosystem
Red Hat has worked closely with partners in Malaysia to reach out to local customers, creating an ecosystem that is supported by both parties. To further support that ecosystem in ASEAN, Red Hat plans to invest in partner-specific marketing, sales and technical support to promote sustainability of the channel partner ecosystem.

Key Verticals
In the latest earnings results, Red Hat achieved the 44th consecutive quarter of revenue growth. Red Hat now provides innovative solutions to more than 90 percent of the Fortune 500 companies, across several verticals including financial services, technology and media, telecommunications, service providers, and government entities. Red Hat is planning to hire between 600 – 800 associates worldwide in FY14, with some of the new hires expected to include sales and customer support roles in ASEAN.

Supporting Quotes
Damien Wong, general manager, ASEAN, Red Hat
“It is wonderful to know that in Malaysia, ICT initiatives such as the Digital Malaysia programme will help promote innovative digital business models, and create new sources of growth. We understand that supporting our channel is critical to Red Hat’s ability to deliver enterprise-ready, reliable, open source solutions to our ASEAN customers. Our partners are an extension of Red Hat, and by investing in resources that our partners need to meet local customer demands, we hope to position them for success.”

Steven Rosen, director, IT, YTL Communications Sdn Bhd
“The ICT industry is experiencing a paradigm shift as companies migrate to cloud-based solutions with their services becoming more of a commodity.  It is crucial for the cloud service providers to standardise on a technology set, such as open source, which can enable the most efficient and cost effective operations.  More and more service providers are now leveraging open source for their technology stacks which enable them to build Centres of Excellence (COE) around the different products while keeping the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) low. For these reasons, YTL Communications has chosen Red Hat to standardise our portals and cloud infrastructures.”