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TechWeb - The Technology News Site

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Q&A: Red Hat CEO Robert Young
Q&A: Red Hat CEO Robert Young
(09/30/98 4:18 p.m. ET)
By John Borland, TechWeb

The Linux operating system got a ringing endorsement from the corporate world this week, when Intel and Netscape announced investments in Red Hat Software, a Durham, N.C., company that produces the leading commercial version of the open source software. The companies did not release financial details of the deal.


Red Hat Software CEO Robert Young says Linux is ready for the corporate mainstream. runs 7:01 (requires RealAudio player)

The company's CEO, Robert Young, says Red Hat will now have access to the same prerelease information Intel shares with other OS vendors, giving Red Hat a significant advantage over the rest of the Linux community.

TechWeb Internet's John Borland asked Young what the investments mean to Red Hat and the rest of the Linux community.

Question You've got some good news from Intel and Netscape. How will that change your business?

Answer It doesn't hugely change our business. This is very much a partnership that we have been working on building for the last couple of years. We recognized we had to build a big user base in order to attract partners of the caliber of Intel and Netscape, and Benchmark and Greylock [two venture-capital firms that are also investing in Red Hat], for that matter.

What it does is open doors to us that were previously very difficult to open on our own as a small company.

Question Will they be evangelizing for Linux at this point?

Answer Almost by default. You can be sure the Linux community will make it appear that Intel and Netscape are evangelizing on behalf of Linux, whether Intel and Netscape's PR departments do a good job of spreading the news.

Question What do you expect to get from them, aside from strictly cash?

Answer That's actually the point. The cash is actually the least of our interest in this deal. It is very much the partnerships.

With Intel, Linux was always very effective. Our open-development model, where all of our users can help us build technology, has enabled Red Hat Linux to run on more PC hardware than anything but Windows 95. It even runs on more PC hardware than NT, for that matter.

The problem is most of the binary-only, proprietary OSes have been working with Intel on a preannouncement basis, so that when new hardware comes out, the other OSes have had a head start on Linux. We catch up very quickly, but they've had a head start. And that will change as a result of this announcement.

Question Do you mean that if Intel gives you some preannouncement information, proprietary information, does that mean other Linux developers will also have access to that before the announcement?

Answer I don't know.

It's going to depend on the situation, on the technology, and on the permissions that Intel is prepared to live with. At the very least, it means all of the other Linux vendors will get those technologies or that information no later than the announcement date of the new technology.

Question But it's possible this may give Red Hat a head start on some of the other Linux developers?

Answer I suppose that's possible, but it's absolutely not the intention.

Question Linux has been talked about more and more, perhaps optimistically, as a Microsoft killer, as a Windows killer.


"While it's certainly fun and sporting to watch the competition between the various players in the information industries, the key issue is what are the users getting out of this?"
-- Robert Young

Answer Yep.

Question What do you think about that? Is that too much optimism?

Answer First let me say that I'm not a Microsoft watcher. There are a lot of better people to comment on what could or could not represent a problem to Microsoft.

The only thing I will say is that it's sort of approaching the issue from the wrong angle. While it's certainly fun and sporting to watch the competition between the various players in the information industries, the key issue is what are the users getting out of this? Are the users benefiting or not benefiting?

I don't expect Microsoft to go away any time soon, and hopefully, the best-case scenario is where the user benefits. Microsoft users will benefit because we push Microsoft into building better technologies, and conversely, our users benefit because Microsoft pushes us into building better technologies.

Question Do you expect to have any further announcements as far as investments from major software and hardware folks?

Answer Not at this time, no.

The short answer is, we've got our work cut out for us. We've just swung these doors open wide and created huge opportunities for ourselves out of this particular announcement, as well as some of the others from Oracle and Informix and all those characters. So we've got our work cut out. We've got a lot of work to do just do deliver on the expectations we are creating.

We intend to focus and deliver very effectively for the Linux user community, but also for the much broader enterprise-user community, who are now going to be deploying Linux solutions.

Question Will the funds from this investment help pay for rolling out your enterprise-support team?

Answer Yeah. We've been a very conservatively run business. My background is in the computer-leasing business. Unlike a lot of software companies these days, we don't have a burn rate. We've actually financed our business off our cash flow. So, we didn't actually need the money. This is where I say the money is the least important of the elements of this deal.

Having said that, in order to provide enterprise-level support services, there is a big up-front investment that we have to make. And that is what the money will absolutely allow us to do. TW

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