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Red Hat Catalyst Program: VARs Gain Complete ISV Solutions
Red Hat today launched the Catalyst Program, which empowers VARs with complete open source software stacks that could rival traditional closed source stacks from Oracle and Microsoft. Here's the scoop from Red Hat Summit and JBoss World in Chicago -- plus some bigger-picture observations. Let's start with the basics: Red Hat seems very serious about building complete open source application stacks with its ISV partners. At the same time, many integrators are seeking turnkey open source solutions that feature hardware, Linux, databases, applications and middleware.
The VAR Guy
September 1, 2009
3 Min Read
Red Hat today launched the Catalyst Program, which empowers VARs with complete open source software stacks that could rival traditional closed source stacks from Oracle and Microsoft. Here's the scoop from Red Hat Summit and JBoss World in Chicago — plus some bigger-picture observations.
Let's start with the basics: Red Hat seems very serious about building complete open source application stacks with its ISV partners. At the same time, many integrators are seeking turnkey open source solutions that feature hardware, Linux, databases, applications and middleware.
That's where the Red Hat Catalyst Program enters the picture. Instead of seeking out those individual piece parts, integrators can potentially leverage the Red Hat Catalyst Program to find complete certified solutions.
According to Red Hat:
"Initial Catalyst solutions will feature Alfresco, Ingres, EnterpriseDB, Jaspersoft and Pentaho. Each of these ISVs has worked with Red Hat to create solutions based on Red Hat technologies that provide Red Hat partners with new ways to extend the value of Red Hat-based open source solutions to a broader set of customers. Sales and marketing tools for Catalyst Program solutions will be available to partners on the Red Hat North America Partner page."
In case you're just getting up to speed on open source:
Alfresco specializes in content management and strives to compete with Microsoft SharePoint
Ingres and EnterpriseDB compete in the database market
Pentaho and Jaspersoft compete in the business intelligence market
Oh, and all of the open source companies listed above landed in The VAR Guy's Open Source 50 report, which tracks the most promising open source partner programs.
Longer term, the Red Hat Catalyst Program is…
"…expected to include a social networking and collaborative web portal to facilitate discussion on innovative solutions developed by Red Hat partners. Additionally, partners are expected to have an opportunity to showcase their own expertise at creating new solution sets built from any combination of Red Hat's 3500-strong ISV catalog."
Sounds Familiar
In some ways, the Red Hat Catalyst Program seems to resemble the Open Source Channel Alliance — an effort launched by Red Hat and Synnex that strives to train 15,000 Synnex resellers on open source solutions.
Still, there are some subtle differences in the efforts. Specifically, the Red hat Catalyst Program is designed for all Red Hat channel partners that are seeking turnkey, certified open source solutions. In contrast, the Open Source Channel Alliance is designed for partners that specifically source solutions through Synnex.
Regardless, Red Hat seems serious about building an open source applications ecosystem that rivals traditional closed-source stacks from Microsoft and Oracle.
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