Red Hat Increases Investment In Partner Ecosystem, Launches Enhanced Partner Program

RALEIGH, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Red Hat (NYSE: RHT), the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced the launch of its enhanced Partner Program, redesigned to give Red Hat's business partners additional economic, sales, marketing and technical benefits through the introduction of a new partner level and solution specializations. The Red Hat Partner Program will now include a Premier Business Partner level in addition to Advanced and Ready classifications. The program will also feature Infrastructure, Middleware & Virtualization specializations.

“Some of our clients are looking to use open source as a cost-effective option. We are pleased to see Red Hat responding to this demand. Its open source approach expands our ability to recommend and build enterprise-class virtualization infrastructures for our clients.”

“The reseller business around Red Hat is growing rapidly because customers are demanding trusted open source solutions to carve costs out of their datacenters, which is why we've enhanced our Partner Program to provide a deeper level of partner engagement,” said Roger Egan, vice president of North American Channel Sales. “Additionally we've increased benefits and built in specializations which will help our partners grow their open source practice. All of this reinforces our commitment and investment to our channel ecosystem.”

Partners continue to play a critical role in the overall success of Red Hat and the enhanced Partner Program will strengthen the investment and commitment to the entire partner ecosystem. Additionally, the redesigned program is intended to enable Red Hat's partner community to collaborate and innovate to create complete solutions that solve customers' IT challenges.

The redesigned program aims to serve all levels of partners and enable them to gain expertise within specific areas of the Red Hat product portfolio. The new Premier Business Partner level is intended to enable partners to deepen their strategic relationship with Red Hat through a number of sales-enablement and revenue-generating benefits; including, sales training, lead distribution, demand-generation campaigns, market development funds, joint customer win promotions and various technical support benefits.

“Red Hat's business model is ideal for the reseller ecosystem because it provides an opportunity for new and renewable revenue streams and the ability to deliver services on top of the solutions. Those factors coupled with the new features of Red Hat's Partner Program help businesses like ours succeed in a very competitive market,” said Greg Peterson, Vice President Solutions Sales, Mainline Information Systems.

In order to increase the reach of partners' solution expertise, the Red Hat Partner Program will now also include three product specializations with the aim to help partners sell total solution sets to their customers. The three specializations are as follows:

Infrastructure Specialization: This specialization is intended for partners with proven expertise on Red Hat Infrastructure Solutions; including Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Platform, Red Hat Network Satellite, Red Hat Global File System, Red Hat Cluster Suite and Red Hat MRG. This specialization requires partners to maintain at least two Channel Sales Certified employees and one Red Hat Certified Technician.
Middleware Specialization: This specialization is intended for partners with proven middleware solution expertise on JBoss Enterprise Middleware solutions; including JBoss Enterprise Application Platform, JBoss BRMS, JBoss Operations Network, JBoss Developer Studio, JBoss SOA Platform and JBoss Data Services Platform. Partners with this specialization will have at least two Channel Middleware Sales Certified employees and one JBoss Administrator.
Virtualization Specialization: This specialization is for partners who have demonstrated expertise in Red Hat's virtualization offerings at both the sales and technical level. This specialization requires partners to maintain two Channel Sales Certified employees and one Red Hat Certified Engineer with a focus on virtualization training.

“Forsythe is committed to helping its clients optimize the cost, mitigate the risk and improve the performance of their IT infrastructure,” says James E. Geis, Forsythe director of solutions development. “Some of our clients are looking to use open source as a cost-effective option. We are pleased to see Red Hat responding to this demand. Its open source approach expands our ability to recommend and build enterprise-class virtualization infrastructures for our clients.”

For more information about Red Hat's Partner Program, visit www.redhat.com/partners. For more news, more often, visit www.press.redhat.com.

About Red Hat, Inc.

Red Hat, the world's leading open source solutions provider, is headquartered in Raleigh, NC with over 65 offices spanning the globe. CIOs ranked Red Hat as one of the top vendors delivering value in Enterprise Software for five consecutive years in the CIO Insight Magazine Vendor Value survey. Red Hat provides high-quality, affordable technology with its operating system platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, together with applications, management and Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) solutions, including JBoss Enterprise Middleware. Red Hat also offers support, training and consulting services to its customers worldwide. Learn more: http://www.redhat.com.

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