Still business as usual for Red Hat

Things are running as normal at Red Hat even with lockdowns in various countries during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Paul Cormier, President & CEO, Red Hat, said that Red Hatters are used to working remotely. In early April, he had earlier blogged about adding capacity for Red Hat's virtual private network (VPN) and single-sign on (SSO) infrastructure to cope with a sudden additional load in users signing on from home.

"Twenty-five to 30% of our engineering folks work remotely 100% of the time," he shared. "Working from home has not been that big of an issue for a big part of the company."

Interacting face-to-face with customers may be more challenging, but Red Hat continues to be in contact with customers, he added. 

"We're in a lot better shape than a lot of other companies because of those things," he said. "We're going full force on the roadmap and product line that we planned from the beginning."

Cormier said one of Red Hat's biggest challenges is helping customers sort through fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) that is common in the market today around open source platforms and vendors which are mixing open source with proprietary products.

"We're having to work through that FUD from many of our competitors. (This has been a) challenge from the beginning," he said.

Asked specifically about VMware's Kubernetes positioning against Red Hat's, Ashesh Badani, Senior VP, Cloud Platforms, Red Hat listed a number of differences, including Red Hat's headstart in collaborating with open source communities for 20 years. 

Badani noted that Red Hat is ahead on Kubernetes solutions, with over 1,700 customers, while VMware is "just starting".

"We have a hybrid cloud strategy (with solutions) natively integrated in every major cloud platform that's available today," he added. "The other (company's solutions) won't be available widely till next year."

In Southeast Asia Benjamin Henshall, GM South East Asian Markets at Red Hat Asia Pacific, said that there are still ongoing projects and programmes which are interesting, though execution has slowed. 

"What we are definitely doing in the ASEAN or Southeast Asia region is just walking alongside with our clients who are in the enterprise space or the top tier medium market space," he said."It's really walking with these clients and customers through the challenges they have."

Such challenges may include access to capital for example, and Red Hat is aligning their subscription model to accommodate the programmes and projects accordingly, Henshall said.

Feldmann during a virtual
press briefing.

The future is bright for the region, added Frank Feldmann, VP, APAC Office of Technology, Red Hat, saying that "there is a lot of room for us to work" on open-source contributions out of Asia. "There's nothing for us but to expand, (there are) plenty of pockets where we can improve and we can invest in that," he said. "Developers is definitely one of those areas. We can improve our reach there."

Red Hat continues to work on engaging governments and individual communities in the Asia Pacific region to improve mindshare on open-source solutions, Feldmann shared. Many think open source is a cheap alternative to something else, when it is an engine to build upon in its own right, he said.

"We're adapting to the situation that is out there, thinking how it will change us long-term," he concluded. "After COVID-19 virtual interactions will be much more accepted and common than before."

While businesses are recalibrating around the world, Feldmann said corporate digital strategies are likely to evolve more rapidly. "I do believe that every company is probably being forced to open their eyes to a digital transformation conversation more than ever before," he said.

"Some industries will struggle to do that because of existing financial models, technology debt or other constraints that they have.. but (there is) no slowdown in that sense of companies wanting to adopt new technology."