[colug-432] Fwd: Press Release: Red Hat to Acquire Gluster

[Chris Embree]

Whereas I think it sux.  RH has been a major PITA to work with lately.
 They're getting too  big for their shorts and this does not bode well for
FOSS.

IMHO, YMMV.

On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 9:06 AM, Scott McCarty <scott.mccarty at gmail.com>wrote:

> I don't usually post to Colug, but this is really cool info!!!!
>
>
> ----- Forwarded Message -----
> From: "Kerri Catallozzi" <kcatallo at redhat.com>
> To: media-monitor at redhat.com
> Sent: Tuesday, October 4, 2011 8:36:03 AM
> Subject: Press Release: Red Hat to Acquire Gluster
>
> 10/4/11
> Business Wire
>
> Red Hat to Acquire Gluster
>
> * Ushers in New Era of Software-Based Open Storage Platforms to Unify
> On-Premise and Cloud
> * Adds Scale-Out Management of Unstructured Data to Red Hat Portfolio
> with Gluster’s Disruptive Open Source Storage Solutions
>
> RALEIGH, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world's
> leading provider of open source solutions to the enterprise, today
> announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Gluster,
> Inc., a leading provider of scale-out, open source storage solutions for
> standardizing the management of unstructured data. With this
> acquisition, Red Hat will define a new baseline for how enterprise IT
> manages the explosion of big data, whether deployed on-premise or
> spanning into the public cloud. Red Hat is expanding into a critical
> part of enterprise infrastructure, enabling it to deliver open storage
> solutions that protect customer investments as they approach the new era
> of computing.
>
> “The explosion of big data and the new paradigm of cloud computing are
> converging, forcing IT to re-think storage investments that are
> cost-effective, manageable and scale for the future,” said Brian
> Stevens, CTO and vice president, Worldwide Engineering at Red Hat. “Our
> customers are looking for software-based storage solutions that manage
> their file-based data on-premise, in the cloud and bridging between the
> two. With unstructured data growth (such as log files, virtual machines,
> email, audio, video and documents), the 90's paradigm of forcing
> everything into expensive, single-system DBMS residing on an internal
> corporate SAN has become unwieldy and impractical.”
>
> Founded in 2005, Gluster's goal was to simplify storage using open
> source software and commodity hardware. The heart of Gluster is
> GlusterFS, a software-only, scale-out storage system. It allows
> enterprises to combine large numbers of commodity storage and compute
> resources into a high-performance, centrally-managed and
> globally-accessible storage pool. By combining commodity economics with
> a scale-out approach, customers can deploy abundant storage without
> compromising on cost, performance and manageability. Gluster has emerged
> as an innovative open source leader, relied upon by companies such as
> Pandora, Box.net and Samsung to efficiently manage large volumes of data.
>
> "We are extremely pleased to be joining Red Hat," said AB Periasamy,
> co-founder and CTO of Gluster. "We believe this is a perfect combination
> of technologies, strategies and cultures and is a great development for
> our customers, employees, investors and community. Gluster started off
> with a goal to be the Red Hat of storage. Now, we are the storage of Red
> Hat.”
>
> "Enterprises and service providers have struggled to manage their
> rapidly expanding unstructured data stores with conventional storage
> systems," said Henry Baltazar, senior analyst of The 451 Group. "The
> scale out storage technology and expertise Red Hat is gaining from the
> acquisition of Gluster will serve as a powerful foundation for future
> public, private and hybrid storage clouds."
>
> Red Hat has agreed to acquire Gluster, a privately-held company, for
> approximately $136 million in cash. As part of the transaction, Red Hat
> will also assume unvested Gluster equity outstanding on the closing date
> and issue certain equity retention incentives. The transaction is
> expected to close in October, subject to customary closing conditions.
>
> The acquisition is expected to have no material impact to Red Hat’s
> revenue this fiscal year but should begin to grow next year based on a
> subscription revenue model. Red Hat is reaffirming its Q3 and fiscal
> 2012 guidance, provided on its September 21, 2011 earnings call, for
> revenue, non-GAAP operating margin, non-GAAP earnings per share and
> operating cash flow, assuming the exchange rates of September 20, 2011
> identified on the call. Non-GAAP operating margin and EPS estimates
> exclude the impact of stock-based compensation and amortization of
> acquisition-related intangibles. Stock-based compensation and
> amortization expenses are estimated to increase by $1 million and $2
> million, respectively, per quarter.
>
> “Industry analysts estimate the total addressable market for
> unstructured data storage at approximately $4 billion and growing. This
> is an exciting new area of potential growth for Red Hat and one in which
> we intend to invest aggressively,” said Charlie Peters, EVP and CFO of
> Red Hat. “While we expect Red Hat's operating income to continue to grow
> nicely next year based on revenue growth, we expect that non-GAAP
> operating margin for fiscal year 2013 could be approximately 150 basis
> points lower than fiscal 2012 as we make additional investments to help
> realize Gluster's potential. At that level, Red Hat's operating margin
> will still be among the highest compared to other high-growth software
> companies when they were at the $1 billion revenue stage,” he added. Red
> Hat expects to offer additional guidance for fiscal year 2013 on its
> fourth quarter earnings call.
>
> To learn more about this announcement, join Red Hat and Gluster
> executives for a webcast that will broadcast live at 12pm ET on October
> 4, 2011. To join the live webcast or to watch the replay, visit
>
> http://www-waa-akam.thomson-webcast.net/us/dispatching/?event_id=a91698cb4345fbc4096be08519bb66f3&portal_id=af9b227bf07c733390c2738ee0330646
> .
>
> For more information about Red Hat, visit www.redhat.com. For more news,
> more often, visit www.press.redhat.com.
>
>
>
>
> --
> Kerri Catallozzi
> Red Hat Corporate Marketing
> Public Relations
> o: 919.754.4268
> c: 919.801.8264
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> colug-432 mailing list
> colug-432 at colug.net
> http://lists.colug.net/mailman/listinfo/colug-432
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.colug.net/pipermail/colug-432/attachments/20111005/4e569606/attachment.html