It is all about software companies today, and this time, we’re going to talk about a company that builds and improves on the open-source Linux operating system – Red Hat.

The history of Red Hat takes us all the way back to 1993, when software was distributed through physical CDs in retail stores. That was when a small businessman named Bob Young, met tech geek Marc Ewing at a tech conference.

Young had been running a computer supply catalogue business out of his home at that point, and Ewing had been geek-hacking and spinning his own distribution (or his own improved rendition) of Linux operating systems on CDs from his home.

Young decided to buy Ewing’s CDs to tap a growing interest in the Linux operating system, and he sold out of them so many times that the duo teamed up to found Red Hat Software in 1995.

At Red Hat, the firm pursued a stable and accessible distribution of a constantly evolving, community-developed Linux operating system, instead of protecting trade secrets and filing patents for expensive proprietary products taken by most industry players.

The firm reached multiple milestones through the years, going public with a record setting IPO in 1999. It also became the first open source technology company to exceed US$1 billion in revenue in 2012.

Then came 2019, when IBM acquired Red Hat for US$34 billion in one of the largest software acquisitions in history.

Today, RedHat is the world’s leading provider of enterprise open source software solutions, using a community approach to deliver what’s said to be reliable and high performance Linux, hybrid cloud, container and Kubernetes technologies.

But how is Red Hat faring at this moment in time? Also – how is it evolving in the age of generative AI? How far are partnerships with chip titans AMD and Nvidia key to future success?

On Under the Radar, Money Matters’ finance presenter Chua Tian Tian posed these questions to Daniel Aw, Vice President of Enterprise Sales, Asia Pacific at Red Hat.

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