Red Hat takes care of enterprise applications

The deal means businesses can host their applications on a Linux platform without requiring any Linux skills internally. Instead they simply hand over control to Macquarie and Red Hat and access the systems using a browser.

Glen Noble, General Manager, Data & Hosting, Macquarie Corporate Telecommunications, said that many large corporates and government departments can recognise the benefits of using Linux may not feel they have the skills in-house to host and manage applications successfully.

"They have already accepted that Linux is a business grade product but not all organisations can build secure Linux solutions and afford a 24x7 monitoring. This is all about an active management program," Noble said.

Sandeep Chandiramani, director of partner alliances at Red Hat, said that although large Australian companies and government departments are already starting adopt Linux, they want the option of a hosted solution.

"Macquarie will provide our customers with secure and reliable access to Red Hat Enterprise Linux - a vital component in expanding our market reach," he said.

Red Hat's rival SuSE Linux last Tuesday partnered with IBM to build hardware and software solutions designed to persuade government departments to migrate their desktops from Windows.