Red Hat claims it has set up its first European development centre in the Czech city of Brno. The company already has programmers in sites in California and Australia but the Czech site will be the biggest development centre outside of its main facility in Boston. With around 207 specialists, the centre will develop systems across almost the entire Red Hat product line, including the Red Hat Enterprise Linux flagship project, the company claims.
Red Hat is not the only company to have taken advantage of Brno's apparent IT skills pool and relatively low labour costs. Indian outsourcing specialist Infosys announced late last year that it is adding another 350-seat facility to its existing site in Brno. The new centre is set to open this month and will provide infrastructure management, ERP and CRM outsourcing services.
The Red Hat Brno facility is sited close to the city's Masaryk University and should see students embarking on internships with the open source specialist. The total cost of setting up the facility is estimated to be around £900,000.