How Red Hat killed its core product—and became a billion-dollar business

posted on 29/02/2012 06:32 #redhat #linux #business

http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/02/how-red-hat-killed-its-core-productand-became-a-billion-dollar-business.ars →

A decade ago, Linux developer Red Hat faced a decision that would make or break the company: whether to stop producing the very product that gave Red Hat its name. The company was built on Red Hat Linux, but when Paul Cormier—now the head of Red Hat’s technologies and products group—joined the company as vice president of engineering in 2001, he knew Red Hat’s devotion to open source alone couldn’t create a business model capable of standing up to the Microsofts and Oracles of the world. He pushed for drastic action.

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