Red Hat facts for kids
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Red Hat Tower, the company's headquarters in Raleigh
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| Subsidiary (independent) | |
| Industry | Computer software |
| Founded | March 1993 |
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| Headquarters |
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U.S.
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Area served
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Worldwide |
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Key people
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List
Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Red Hat Directory Server Fedora Linux Satellite Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Red Hat Storage Server JBoss EAP Red Hat Single Sign On Ansible CloudForms OpenShift Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure for Virtualization Red Hat Certificate System Red Hat AMQ Red Hat Insights |
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Number of employees
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19,000 |
| Parent | IBM (2019–present) |
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Red Hat, Inc. is an American software company that makes open source software for businesses. It is part of IBM. Red Hat started in 1993 and has its main office in Raleigh, North Carolina. They also have offices all over the world.
Red Hat is very well known for its main computer operating system, Red Hat Enterprise Linux. They also offer other software products. These include tools for storage, managing computer systems, and various applications. Red Hat also provides support, training, and advice to its customers.
Red Hat helps create and improve many free software projects. They have bought other software companies and then made their software available for free. As of 2016, Red Hat was one of the biggest companies helping to develop the Linux kernel. This is the core part of the Linux operating system.
In 2018, a big company called IBM decided to buy Red Hat for a lot of money. The deal finished in 2019. Red Hat still works mostly on its own, but as part of IBM.
Contents
How Red Hat Started
In 1993, a person named Bob Young started a company called ACC Corporation. This company sold accessories for Linux and Unix software through catalogs. In 1994, Marc Ewing created his own version of Linux. He called it Red Hat Linux. He named it after a red hat he used to wear.
Bob Young bought Marc Ewing's business in 1995. The two companies joined together to become Red Hat Software. Bob Young became the first CEO.
Growing Bigger and Joining the Stock Market
Red Hat became a public company on August 11, 1999. This meant people could buy shares of the company. It was one of the biggest first-day gains on Wall Street at that time. Matthew Szulik took over as CEO in December 1999.
On November 15, 1999, Red Hat bought a company called Cygnus Solutions. Cygnus helped support free software. One of Cygnus's founders, Michael Tiemann, became a top technical officer at Red Hat. Red Hat later bought other companies like WireSpeed and C2Net.
In February 2000, InfoWorld magazine gave Red Hat its "Operating System Product of the Year" award for Red Hat Linux 6.1. This was the fourth time they won this award.
Moving Headquarters and New Products
In February 2002, Red Hat moved its main office to Raleigh, North Carolina. The next month, Red Hat introduced Red Hat Linux Advanced Server. This was later renamed Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Big companies like Dell, IBM, HP, and Oracle Corporation said they would support this new platform.
In December 2005, Red Hat was ranked #1 in value by CIO Insight magazine. Red Hat's stock also became part of the NASDAQ-100 index.
On June 5, 2006, Red Hat bought JBoss, a company that made open-source software. JBoss then became a part of Red Hat. In December 2006, Red Hat's stock moved to trade on the New York Stock Exchange.
On March 15, 2007, Red Hat released Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. In 2008, Red Hat bought Amentra, a company that helped with system integration.
Reaching Milestones
On July 27, 2009, Red Hat joined the S&P 500 stock index. This was a big step for Linux.
In January 2011, Red Hat announced it would make its headquarters bigger. They planned to add 540 employees and invest over $109 million.
In August 2011, Red Hat moved about 600 employees to a new building. A special ceremony was held in June 2013 for the new Red Hat Headquarters.
In 2012, Red Hat became the first open-source company to earn over one billion dollars in a year. They reached $1.13 billion in revenue. By 2015, they passed $2 billion, and by February 2018, their yearly revenue was almost $3 billion.
In October 2015, Red Hat bought a company called Ansible. This company made software for IT automation. In May 2018, Red Hat also bought CoreOS.
Becoming Part of IBM
On October 28, 2018, IBM announced it planned to buy Red Hat for $34 billion. This was one of IBM's biggest purchases ever. Red Hat would work as part of IBM's Hybrid Cloud division.
Six months later, in May 2019, the US Department of Justice approved the deal. The purchase was completed on July 9, 2019.
What is the Fedora Project?
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Red Hat is the main supporter of the Fedora Project. This is a free software project supported by a community of people. Its goal is to help free and open-source software grow quickly.
How Red Hat Makes Money
Red Hat uses a special way to do business based on open-source software. They develop software with a community of users. They also make sure their software is high quality. Then, they sell subscriptions for support and training.
Red Hat creates open-source code. This means other programmers can make changes and improvements to it. Customers pay one price for unlimited access to services like Red Hat Network and 24/7 support.
In September 2014, Red Hat's CEO, Jim Whitehurst, said that Red Hat was moving towards "cloud-mobile" technology.
Programs and Projects
Red Hat works on many different projects and programs.
One Laptop per Child
Red Hat engineers worked with the One Laptop per Child project. This project aimed to create an inexpensive laptop for children around the world. The goal was to give every child access to open communication and learning. The last laptop from this project, the XO-4, used a simple version of Fedora Linux as its operating system.
KVM
Avi Kivity started developing KVM in 2006. KVM is a technology that helps computers run multiple operating systems at once. Red Hat bought the company that made KVM in 2008.
GNOME
Red Hat is the biggest helper for the GNOME desktop environment. Many Red Hat employees work full-time on GNOME projects.
systemd
This is a system that helps start up and manage services on Linux computers.
PulseAudio
This is a program that manages sound on computers and can send sound over a network.
Dogtail
Dogtail is a free software tool developed by Red Hat. It helps developers test their applications. It is written in Python.
Opensource.com
Red Hat started an online publication called Opensource.com in 2010. This website shows how open-source ideas can be used in many areas. These areas include business, education, government, and health.
Red Hat's Software Products
Red Hat build of Keycloak
This software helps users sign in to different applications easily and securely. It is based on an open-source project called Keycloak.
Red Hat Subscription Management
This system helps manage customer subscriptions and delivers software content.
Ceph Storage
Red Hat is a major contributor to Ceph Storage. This is a special kind of storage software that runs on regular computer servers. It is designed to be very large and reliable. Ceph can store data in a way that prevents it from being lost. It also helps manage itself, which saves time for administrators.
OpenShift
Red Hat runs OpenShift, which is a cloud computing platform. It helps people build and run applications using different programming languages. Red Hat is also a big helper for Kubernetes code, which is used with OpenShift.
OpenStack
Red Hat sells a version of OpenStack. This software helps manage a data center like a cloud computing system.
CloudForms
Red Hat CloudForms helps manage different types of virtual computers and containers. It works with many popular cloud services like VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V, and Amazon EC2. CloudForms is based on the ManageIQ project.
CoreOS
Container Linux (formerly CoreOS Linux) was a lightweight operating system. It was designed to run applications inside software containers. Red Hat acquired CoreOS in 2018.
LibreOffice
Red Hat helped develop LibreOffice, which is a free and open-source office suite. However, in 2023, Red Hat decided not to include LibreOffice in its RHEL 10 operating system. Users can still download LibreOffice separately.
Other Tools
Red Hat programmers have also created many other software tools and utilities. Some of these tools are now used by a wider community. These include:
- Disk Druid – for dividing up computer hard drives.
- rpm – for managing software packages.
- sos – tools for collecting information about computer hardware.
- SystemTap – a tool for looking closely at how the Linux kernel works.
- NetworkManager – for managing network connections.
Red Hat's Other Companies
Red Hat Czech
Red Hat building in Brno
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| Společnost s ručením omezeným (Limited Liability Company) | |
| Industry | Software |
| Founded | 2006 |
| Headquarters | , |
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| Total assets |
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Number of employees
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1180 (2019) |
| Parent | Red Hat |
Red Hat Czech is a research and development part of Red Hat. It is located in Brno, Czech Republic. This office started in 2006 and had 1,180 employees in 2019. Red Hat chose the Czech Republic because the country supported open-source software.
Red Hat Czech was named the "Most progressive employer of the year" in the Czech Republic in 2010. It was also named the "Best Employer in the Czech Republic" for large companies in 2011.
Red Hat India
In 2000, Red Hat started Red Hat India. This company delivers Red Hat software and support to customers in India. Red Hat opened this office because many people in India were starting to use Red Hat Linux.
Red Hat India worked with local companies to help spread open-source technology in government and education. In 2006, Red Hat India had a large network of partners across many cities in India.
Companies Red Hat Has Bought
Red Hat has bought many other companies over the years. Their first big purchase was Delix Computer GmbH-Linux Div in Germany in 1999.
Red Hat's largest purchase was Cygnus Solutions in 2000 for $674 million. In 2006, Red Hat bought JBoss for $420 million.
Here is a list of some of the companies Red Hat has bought:
| Date | Company | What they did | Country | Value (USD) |
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| July 13, 1999 | Atomic Vision | Website design |  United States |
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| July 30, 1999 | Delix Computer GmbH -Linux Div |
Computers and software |  Germany |
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| January 11, 2000 | Cygnus Solutions Limited | Software tools | United States |
$674,444,000 |
| May 26, 2000 | Bluecurve | IT management software | United States |
$37,107,000 |
| August 1, 2000 | Wirespeed Communications | Internet software | United States |
$83,963,000 |
| August 15, 2000 | Hell's Kitchen Systems | Internet software | United States |
$85,624,000 |
| September 13, 2000 | C2Net | Internet software | United States |
$39,983,000 |
| February 5, 2001 | Akopia | Ecommerce software | United States |
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| February 28, 2001 | Planning Technologies | Consulting | United States |
$47,000,000 |
| February 11, 2002 | ArsDigita | Assets and employees | United States |
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| October 15, 2002 | NOCpulse | Software | United States |
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| December 18, 2003 | Sistina Software | File system and storage tools | United States |
$31,000,000 |
| September 30, 2004 | The Netscape Security -Certain Asts |
Certain assets | United States |
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| June 5, 2006 | JBoss | Middleware software |  France |
$420,000,000 |
| June 6, 2007 | MetaMatrix | Information management software | United States |
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| June 19, 2007 | Mobicents | Telecommunications software | United States |
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| March 13, 2008 | Amentra | Consulting | United States |
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| June 4, 2008 | Identyx | Software | United States |
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| September 4, 2008 | Qumranet | Virtualization technology |  Israel |
$107,000,000 |
| November 30, 2010 | Makara | Enterprise software | United States |
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| October 4, 2011 | Gluster | Storage software | United States |
$136,000,000 |
| June 27, 2012 | FuseSource | Enterprise integration software | United States |
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| August 28, 2012 | Polymita | Enterprise software |  Spain |
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| December 20, 2012 | ManageIQ | Orchestration software | United States |
$104,000,000 |
| January 7, 2014 | The CentOS Project | Linux distribution | United States |
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| April 30, 2014 | Inktank Storage | Ceph storage | United States |
$175,000,000 |
| June 18, 2014 | eNovance | OpenStack Integration Services | France |
$95,000,000 |
| September 18, 2014 | FeedHenry | Mobile Application Platform |  Ireland |
$82,000,000 |
| October 16, 2015 | Ansible | Automation software | United States |
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| June 22, 2016 | 3scale | API management | United States |
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| May 25, 2017 | Codenvy | Cloud software | United States |
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| July 31, 2017 | Permabit | Data management | United States |
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| January 30, 2018 | CoreOS | Container management software | United States |
$250,000,000 |
| November 28, 2018 | NooBaa | Cloud storage technology | Israel |
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| January 7, 2021 | StackRox | Container management software | United States |
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See also
In Spanish: Red Hat para niños
