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Red Hat Nears $1 Billion In Deferred Revenue
Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) is approaching $1 billion in deferred revenue, a strong sign that financial services, government, technology and telecommunications customers see the open source company as a long-term software partner. But can Red Hat use all of that good will to attract a new generation of cloud, storage and virtualization customers?
The VAR Guy
January 15, 2013
2 Min Read
Red Hat 1 billion
Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) is approaching $1 billion in deferred revenue, a strong sign that financial services, government, technology and telecommunications customers see the open source company as a long-term software partner. But can Red Hat use all of that good will to attract a new generation of cloud, storage and virtualization customers?The VAR Guy raises those questions amid the Red Hat North America Partner Conference, which kicks off this week in San Diego, Calif. Although some Wall Street pundits worry about potential slowing growth at Red Hat, customers continue to make long-term commitments to the software company.
According to a Red Hat SEC filing dated January 8, 2013:
“Our deferred revenue, current and long-term, balance at November 30, 2012 was $987.7 million. Because of our subscription model and revenue recognition policies, deferred revenue improves predictability of future revenue. Deferred revenue at November 30, 2012 increased $41.0 million or 4.3% as compared to the balance at February 29, 2012 of $946.7 million.”
Red Hat’s continued growth hinges on six business factors, according to the filing, including “our ability to generate increasing revenue from channel partner and other strategic relationships, including distributors, OEMs, IHVs, ISVs, cloud computing providers, VARs and system integrators.”
To attract and retain such partners, emerging technologies like Red Hat Storage and Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV) must prove their worth. Moreover, Red Hat’s cloud platforms — such as CloudForms (IaaS) and OpenShift (PaaS) — must stand out amid alternatives from Amazon Web Services, VMware and more.
For channel partners that can’t attend this week’s Red Hat conference, keep a particularly close eye on the company’s open hybrid cloud strategy.
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