Baseline: Red Hat Professional Services: The RH Factor

"When you're a company that sells open-source code, it can be difficult to differentiate yourself from competitors. Recognizing this challenge, Red Hat launched its own professional services organization about a year-and-a-half ago to improve its value proposition.

"Today, Red Hat's professional services organization is on track to bring in about $9 million in annual revenue. The decade-old company also provides its Red Hat Network service, which offers a way to automatically deliver software updates and to manage Red Hat Linux servers.

"Sitel Corp., a provider of multichannel customer contact centers, began switching its systems over from IBM Unix to Red Hat's Linux in July 2002. Of the company's 170 servers, 47 now run Linux. Scott Clark, Sitel's information technology director, says the company contracted with Red Hat's consulting services to assist with the initial changeover and the firm is now brought in about one week every three months. Overall, he's been pleased. 'There were some early learning curves we had to get over with Red Hat, but it's been a very good relationship,' he says..."

Complete Story

Related Stories:

• Linux Journal: Marty Larsen Leads Laid-Off VA Professional Services Team to Safety (Oct 18, 2001)
• InternetWeek: Work-Ready Linux(Sep 09, 2001)
• Red Hat Shows a Profit for the First Time(Jun 19, 2001)
• Red Hat Says Company Reached Break Even Per Share in Q4(Mar 22, 2001)