Studie - Red Hat turns open source into enterprise assets

Red Hat is the biggest open source software success story — a rebuke to those who, only a few years back, wondered whether open source companies could make any money at all.

Executive summary

The Ovum view

SWOT analysis

Strengths

Weaknesses

Opportunities

Threats

Making open source bigger and boring

Expanding open source to new markets

Making open source easier to consume

Focus on value and opex

A recent renewed focus on low cost may prove dangerous

Pricing is stable, though, and value is recognised

Focus on opex rather than capex

A tactical approach to open source licensing

Red Hat prefers the GPL but uses other licences

JBoss prefers the LGPL, but JBoss projects are free to use their own licences

Generating more money from open source

New free-to-pay initiative

Needs to be better structured and expanded

Becoming an open source ecosystem hub

A new mission statement

Project perspective: open source contributor and defender

Contributor and technology innovator (rather than technology packager)

A growing contributor of acquired and internally developed technology

Turning other organisations into open source contributors

Red Hat as an open source community hub

Open source defender against IPR threats

An open standard supporter

Partner perspective: From RHX to OSCA

Red Hat Exchange (RHX) open source procurement hub

Failed to take off

Now replaced by the Open Source Channel Alliance (OSCA)

Among other partner-related initiatives

Customer perspective

Some organisations already contribute

Increasing customer involvement

Some (wrongly) disagree

Red Hat needs to approach the issue better, though

Open source impact on partners

Grown apart from Oracle

Closer to Microsoft

No plain sailing

A beacon that many like to dismiss

An awkward player

A stunted bottom-up approach to marketing

• SMB Cloud Market in the APAC Region 2012-2016
• Global Cloud Systems Management Software Market 2012-2016
• Global Cloud Storage Gateway Market 2012-2016
• Global Public Cloud Market 2012-2016
• Small and Medium-sized Business Cloud Market in the US 2012-2016
• Cloud-based Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Market in the US 2012-2016
• Global Cloud Services Brokerage Market 2012-2016
• Global Data Center Outsourcing Market 2011-2015
• Global Enterprise 2.0 Market 2012-2016
• Global Private Cloud Market 2012-2016
• Global Cloud-based VDI Market 2012-2016
• Global Cloud Virtualization Software Market 2011-2015
• Global Containerized Data Center Market 2011-2015
• Global Data Center Application Delivery Controller Market 2011-2015
• Global Cloud-based Storage Market 2011-2015
• Cloud Computing Market in India 2011-2015
• Cloud-based VDI Market in Europe 2011-2015
• Cloud-based VDI Market in France 2011-2015
• Global Cloud Equipment Market 2011-2015
• Cloud Services Adoption Market in the EMEA Region-Survey Report 2011