RedHat acqusition of IBM, a big mistake?

[rajbcpa]

Well, I worked as an independant CPA [KPMG} on a few RedHat business acqusitions a few years ago so I am familar with the company and its senior folk.

Well, you thought IBM acquired RedHat? Not really, although that was what was written in the press. You see, after 26 consecutive quarters with declining revenue and no where to turn, the IBM management was desperate for an end to the decline in the company's fortunes. I think we should "merge" with RedHat.

REALLY? WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? You may have heard of the worst acquistion in recorded history being that of the AOL/TimeWarner/CNN? This one will likely eclipse it and be written in all the Grad school text books.....

So as time goes bye, more and more people are downloading Apps on their cell phone, tablets, and computers. Unfortunately, not many Apps are available for Linux users.

This seems to be getting worse morerecently but I am a NEWBE and may not be fully informed.

 

[dcbrown73]

To be clear, IBM acquired Redhat. The man with the deepest pockets is the acquirer. That is IBM. Besides, the proof is in the pudding. They merged and Ginni Rometty is out and they promoted Arvind Krishna instead of Jim Whitehurst. Now, Jim Whitehurst is departing. If Redhat was the acquirer, Jim Whitehurst would be IBM CEO.

This is how you know nothing has changed at IBM. (and should be a gut punch to all IBM stockholders of what could have been) There are a few companies I do not like to deal with because they are never *customer first* IBM is at the top of that list. If you ever get a *good deal* with IBM. It's because you just stepped into their trap. Their primary business is creating vendor-lockin and once you're in, their prices go way way up!

I've been a staunch Redhat guy since 1998. My Redhat rep called me to sell other services to me. I broke the bad news to him that we would be migrating away from Redhat due to the IBM acquisition. He asked why, and I wrote him a novel-sized email explaining all the ways in which IBM screwed over the companies I've worked for. Including the one I currently work for who has an IBM iSeries. I'm currently architecting how we are going to break the vendor-lockin with the iSeries, but it's a 5-10 year plan due to how deeply ingrained they are with this stupid iSeries.

 

[Deleted member 108694]

The DoD also uses RedHat Linux in things like Blue Force Tracker. Now that IBM has control over RedHat that could mean millions of $ in support to the US DoD

 

[kc1di]

While I hold no grudge against IBM. I don't think their buying of Red Hat a good thing and especially for Red Hat, I know they said nothing will change at Redhat but it is bound to especially now that Jim is gone. IBM stays with their old model of management and lost a good CEO. That will change Red Hat for sure only thing not for sure is in what way exactly. I look for Red Hat to become more and more commercialized in the sense of IBM business models and the freedom it has had to innovate may be limited in the future. It's not clear how this will impact Fedora but it has already pretty much done CentOS in. It's a mistake for Red Hat!