Is no news good news for Red Hat?
Red Hat held its annual summit in San Diego this week. It drew scant press coverage.
There were news announcements:
- Red Hat announced a Linux on mainframes program. There is still money in big iron.
- Red Hat will build a Virtual Appliance OS with Intel, delivering virtualization to desktops using Intel's vPro.
- Red Hat announced a new Global Desktop, aimed at emerging markets, and reminded folks of its work with the One Laptop Per Child initiative.
In some ways no news is indeed good news. Red Hat has successfully absorbed JBOSS. Its stock has moved to the New York Exchange under the symbol RHT. Of every dollar in its roughly $400 million in annual revenue, its net profit is 15 cents. Since Oracle announced its entry into the Linux market Red Hat shares are up 25%.
There remain reasons for concern. First quarter revenue disappointed. Its stock performance, compared with that of Sun, has lagged over the last year. Even Novell has done better, or at least less bad. Dell went with Ubuntu.
Red Hat is no longer the only big dog in the Linux space. It faces a lot of competition. But at the heart of its market, the enterprise space, what I might call the IBM space, Red Hat remains strong. Its relationship with IBM seems strong, and IBM itself has mainly kept quiet this last year, preferring to let its numbers do the talking.
So, does Red Hat need to make headlines in order to stay on top?