How Red Hat's New CEO Handles Life Under IBM -- and a Global Pandemic (newsobserver.com) 20
Paul Cormier became Red Hat's new CEO this week -- while the entire company was working from home. He had to make his inaugural address to over 12,000 employees around the world using BlueJeans videoconferencing tools, reports a North Carolina newspaper:
In some ways, Red Hat was well prepared to work through the disruptions of coronavirus. For years, the company has encouraged and accepted employees who have wanted to work from home. It's been a big part of its recruiting efforts, Cormier said. "Especially in engineering, our strategy has always been hire the best person, we don't care where they are."
That doesn't mean it has been unscathed. The company has had to change its sales and product conference this year into a virtual event and social isolation obviously puts a strain on relationships with customers. And while the company wouldn't give out an exact number of employees who have be infected by COVID-19, a spokeswoman for Red Hat said, "We have cases around the globe -- people who are presumed to be sick, people who are sick and, happily, people who have recovered."
Cormier said he's committed to taking care of the thousands of employees affected by work-from-home orders across the globe. Red Hat, he said, will pay all of its employees during this time regardless of whether "you're 140% productive or 40% productive."
Cormier also emphasized he's committed to keeping Red Hat a "totally, totally separate company" from IBM, saying that was agreed upon from the beginning with IBM's new CEO Arvind Krishna. "If we're not independent, then the other cloud guys won't feel safe working with us... Intel, for example, shares their road map, which is super top secret, with us five years in advance, because we have to build the OS to support all their features...." He also noted that Red Hat's finance, legal, communications and human resources teams are all separate from IBM. "IBM doesn't set our road map. We set our road map," he said.
Where the company has seen a lot of success together, though, is in combining sales efforts. In its last earnings call, IBM said Red Hat was seeing an increase in large deals worth more than $10 million after joining IBM. One of them was with Verizon, for example.
That doesn't mean it has been unscathed. The company has had to change its sales and product conference this year into a virtual event and social isolation obviously puts a strain on relationships with customers. And while the company wouldn't give out an exact number of employees who have be infected by COVID-19, a spokeswoman for Red Hat said, "We have cases around the globe -- people who are presumed to be sick, people who are sick and, happily, people who have recovered."
Cormier said he's committed to taking care of the thousands of employees affected by work-from-home orders across the globe. Red Hat, he said, will pay all of its employees during this time regardless of whether "you're 140% productive or 40% productive."
Cormier also emphasized he's committed to keeping Red Hat a "totally, totally separate company" from IBM, saying that was agreed upon from the beginning with IBM's new CEO Arvind Krishna. "If we're not independent, then the other cloud guys won't feel safe working with us... Intel, for example, shares their road map, which is super top secret, with us five years in advance, because we have to build the OS to support all their features...." He also noted that Red Hat's finance, legal, communications and human resources teams are all separate from IBM. "IBM doesn't set our road map. We set our road map," he said.
Where the company has seen a lot of success together, though, is in combining sales efforts. In its last earnings call, IBM said Red Hat was seeing an increase in large deals worth more than $10 million after joining IBM. One of them was with Verizon, for example.
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Red Hat will remain independent from IBM, until IBM changes its mind.
They'll probably sell them off for a profit. IBM likes to sell things off.
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and move the jobs to india (wait that costs to much now) Sound Sudan is the new chap place.
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and move the jobs to india (wait that costs to much now) Sound Sudan is the new chap place.
For better English, outsourced they have.
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How much is the crushed shell of a company worth?
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...He doesn't own the company. IBM does.
Red Hat will remain independent from IBM, until IBM changes its mind.
Then again, maybe Cringley is right, and IBM will disappear into Red Hat, what with all of IBM’s troubles, and especially considering Red Hat is the top Linux distribution, the Linux so many see as the future of the cloud.
https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/02/02/0448233/cringely-predicts-ibm-disappears-into-red-hat [slashdot.org]
super top secret (Score:3)
Intel, for example, shares their road map, which is super top secret, ...
Hmm... I must have missed that classification during my security training ...
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Super Top Secret means whenever the Red Hat and Intel chiefs are going to discuss the roadmap, it has to be in-person - AND they have to use the Cone of Silence.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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Not innovating? Aren't IBM one of the top 2 or 3 in the "patents granted" list - *every* year?
They've certainly shat in their own nest over the last few years (someone else noted it all started to go downhill towards the end of the Gerstner period), but given the progress of mid-range and mainframe technology, it's a leap to say they're not innovating.
What they didn't do was respond quickly enough to the explosive growth of cheap x86 hardware and the LAMP stack.
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Not innovating? Aren't IBM one of the top 2 or 3 in the "patents granted" list - *every* year?
IBM hits that mark by encouraging their employees to file for patents on total nonsense. I'm listed as an "inventor" on one that boils down to "insert something at the beginning of a queue."
While there is innovation going on at IBM, the patent counts really aren't good evidence of that, since IBM tries to artificially inflate that number.
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Fair enough. I hope that *some* of those patents must be worthwhile.
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Fair enough. I hope that *some* of those patents must be worthwhile.
Certainly some are; I've got some patents that I'd say are valid as well. But just based on what I've seen, I'd bet that the ratio of good patents to the total number is way under 50%.
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People have been saying IBM is dead since the '90s but they're somehow still around, still making mainframes (System z) and high performance servers (System i and System p), and still building supercomputers (Summit, Sierra). Their services business still exists as well. Yes, they've shed a lot of businesses (desktop, x86 servers, the former Blade Networks, Lotus groupware), but isn't that part of adapting to market conditions? They've made some pretty influential contributions to open source over the ye
Weather Underground (Score:1)
Fedora independence threatened (Score:1)
Good for them (Score:3)
'For years, the company has encouraged and accepted employees who have wanted to work from home. It's been a big part of its recruiting efforts, Cormier said. "Especially in engineering, our strategy has always been hire the best person, we don't care where they are."'
This is a positive attitude. I've never understood companies expecting dev/engineers to be local or relocate. Why would you make people move to high priced urban and/or progressive housing when all the equipment and systems are designed for remote work? Other than wanting to treat your children like they are grown ups rather than college kids with no work ethic.
Especially these companies in and around the valley... what you are paying would be a great salary... living damn near anywhere but the valley.
Two dying companies circling... (Score:1)