First off, today is one of those days when I need to point you at the standard disclaimer that the views expressed in this post are my own, and not necessarily those of my employers. That said, I think that many of them probably align, but better safe than sorry[1]. Another note: I believe that all of the information in this article is public knowledge.
The news came out two days ago (last Sunday, 2018-10-28) that Red Hat, my employer, is being acquired by IBM for $34bn. I didn’t know about it the deal in advance (I’m not that exalted within the company hierarchy, which is probably a good thing, as all those involved needed to keep very tight-lipped about it, and that would have been hard), so the first intimation I got was when people started sharing stories from various news sites on internal chat discussions. They (IBM) are quite clear about the fact that they are acquiring us for the people, which means that each of us (including me!) is worth around $2.6m, based on our current headcount. Sadly, I don’t think it works quite like this, and certainly nobody has (yet) offered to pay me that amount[2]. IBM have also said that they intend to keep Red Hat operating as a separate entity within IBM.
How do I feel? My initial emotion was shock. It’s always a surprise when you get news that you weren’t expecting, and the message that we’d carried for a long time was the Red Hat would attempt to keep ploughing its own furrow[3] for as long as possible. But I’d always known that, as a public company, we were available to be bought, if the money was good enough. It appears on this occasion that it was. And that emotion turned to interest as to what was going to happen next.
And do you know what? It’s difficult to think of a better fit than IBM. I’m not going to enumerate the reasons that I feel that other possible acquirers would have been worse, but here are some of the reasons that IBM, at least in this arrangement, is good:
- they “get” open source, and have a long history of encouraging its use;
- they seem to understand that Red Hat has a very distinctive culture, and want to encourage that, post-acquisition;
- they have a hybrid cloud strategy and products, Red Hat has a hybrid cloud strategy and products: they’re fairly well-aligned;
- we’re complementary in a number of sectors and markets;
- they’re a much bigger player than us, and suddenly, we’ll have access to more senior people in new and exciting companies.
What about the impact on me, though? Well, IBM takes security seriously. IBM has some fantastic research and academic connections. The group in which I work has some really bright and interesting people in it, and it’s difficult to imagine IBM wanting to break it up. A number of the things I’m working on will continue to align with both Red Hat’s direction and IBM’s. The acquisition will take up to a year to complete – assuming no awkward regulatory hurdles along the way – and not much is going to change in the day-to-day. Except that I hope to get even better access to my soon-to-be-colleagues working in similar fields to me, but within IBM.
Will there be issues along the way? Yes. Will there be uncertainty? Yes. But do I trust that the leadership within Red Hat and IBM have an honest commitment to making things work in a way that will benefit Red Hatters? Yes.
And am I looking to jump ship? Oh, no. Far too much interesting stuff to be doing. We’ve got an interesting few months and years ahead of us. My future looked red, until Sunday night. Then maybe blue. But now I’m betting on something somewhere between the two: go Team Purple.
1 – because, well, lawyers, the SEC, etc., etc.
2 – if it does, then, well, could somebody please contact me?
3 – doing its own thing independently.
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