Red Hat forges on, 44 straight quarters of revenue growth

  • Red Hat reports 44 consecutive quarters of revenue growth; driven by telco, govt and FSI sectors
  • Its open source solutions used in controversial 1BestariNet project; YTL exec stands by implementation

Red Hat forges on, 44 straight quarters of revenue growthOPEN source solutions provider Red Hat expects continued growth in Malaysia, on the back of its regional growth and fuelled by the telecommunications, government and financial services sectors.
 
The company reported that its global channel business has grown over the past four years, with channel bookings at 53% of total bookings in financial year 2008 (FY08) to 60% in FY12 and most recently, 62% for FY13, which ended Feb 28, 2013.
 
Damien Wong (pic), Asean general manager at Red Hat, said that the company has enjoyed 44 consecutive quarters of revenue growth, alluding to the resilience and value proposition of its portfolio of open source-based products.
 
Wong added that Red Hat now provides innovative solutions to more than 90% of the Fortune 500 companies, across several verticals including financial services, technology and media, telecommunications, service providers and government entities.
 
He said that Asia Pacific has seen double-digit growth over the last year, with the region's most recent quarter’s results accounting for 12% of global bookings.
 
In line with this overall growth, the company is planning to hire between 600-800 associates worldwide in 2014, with some of the new hires expected to include sales and customer support roles in the Asean region.
 
In addition, the company has worked closely with partners in Malaysia to reach out to local customers, creating an ecosystem that is supported by both parties, he claimed.
 
To further support the Asean ecosystem, Red Hat plans to invest in partner-specific marketing, sales and technical support to promote the sustainability of the channel partner ecosystem.
 
“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,” Wong said.
 
Malaysia’s IT industry is expected to have a US$10 billion economy in 2013, according to research and market intelligence firm IDC.  
 
Wong sees two main drivers of IT in the country, the first being the slew of initiatives under the Digital Malaysia programme, a government-led initiative to transform the nation into a fully developed digital economy by 2020.
 
The company hopes to play a supporting role in enabling the nation to meet its objectives.
 
“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,” he said.
 
The second driver lies in security, compelled by heightened corporate concerns over recent high profile breaches.
 
“Security spend is going up and it is certainly going to be a focus in the coming months. You can deploy new technology but you don’t want it compromised in security or performance,” said Wong.
 
Telecommunications, government and financial services sectors will continue to be the main areas of focus for Red Hat in the coming months, he said, adding however that businesses across verticals would continue to adopt open source solutions as the mainstream technology in the continuing shift toward cloud computing.
 
“Companies need to think open and open standards, and design their IT infrastructure in a way that allows them to leverage new developments. The time to do so is now as the reality of cloud takes shape and open source solutions become pervasive in enterprises,” he argued.
 
To support such investments made by enterprises, Wong said Red Hat already offers a full suite of solutions and recently launched its own version of OpenStack, aimed at clients looking for a standardised approach, as well as lock-in avoidance in their cloud architecture.
 
The free Red Hat Distribution OpenStack (RDO) is currently offered as a fully supported version for early adopters or a 90-day evaluation.

Next page: YTL's open source edge
 

 
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