Computing giant IBM is targeting the number one spot in the hybrid cloud market with the imminent acquisition of open source software provider Red Hat.
So said IBM chairman Ginni Rometty and Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst, speaking during the IBM Think 2019 event in San Francisco.
Last month, Red Hat investors agreed to the $34 billion merger agreement between the company and IBM.
Market watchers believe the Red Hat acquisition is potentially a big help to IBM's transition to the cloud era.
"We are not only committed to hybrid cloud but to open source. That's why in October last year we announced the process of acquiring Red Hat," said Rometty.
IBM and Red Hat believe that after the merger they will be strongly positioned to accelerate hybrid multi-cloud adoption.
The companies' partnership has spanned 20 years, with IBM serving as an early supporter of Linux, collaborating with Red Hat to help develop and grow enterprise-grade Linux and more recently to bring enterprise Kubernetes and hybrid cloud solutions to customers.
These innovations have become core technologies within IBM's $19 billion hybrid cloud business, said Rometty.
Between them, IBM and Red Hat claim they have contributed more to the open source community than any other organisation.
"We are going to continue investing in this journey," Rometty said. "The destination for me is hybrid cloud; meaning traditional IT, private cloud and public cloud."
She pointed out that research shows 80% of business workloads have yet to move to the cloud, held back by the proprietary nature of today's cloud market. This prevents portability of data and applications across multiple clouds, data security in a multi-cloud environment and consistent cloud management, she explained.
"I am so excited about this [acquisition] for a multiple of reasons," said Whitehurst. "Red Hat starts from open source projects. We think we will now be able to expose our technology to the enterprises."
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