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Akibia is a 20-year-old, $100 million traditional IT services provider that cast a net into the shallow waters of Linux two years ago. And even though it has brought in only between $2 million and $4 million in revenue from its Linux
practice over the past 12 months, the Westborough, Mass., firmwhich was selected as Novell's Linux Partner of The Year for 2005sees a wave of service opportunities crashing in as Linux and open-source use expands in the data center.
President Tom Tucker says Akibia may not be making a boatload of money from Linux just yet, but customers are definitely now moving applicationseven some mission-critical onesto Linux. "Everyone has Linux initiatives going on," said Tucker.
Vendor partner Novell helped drive Akibia's entry into the Linux services business, said Tucker. Then, a few months ago, Akibia also became a Red Hat partner, looking to the unquestioned market leader to help the company move into deeper fishing waters. "It's important to our customers and it's a way to differentiate ourselves from our competitors," said Tucker.
To partners like Akibia, the open-source VAR channel's time has arrived. It's been a long time coming.
In October 1998, Red Hat unveiled a major distribution agreement with Ingram Micro and its first authorized reseller program. That program eventually folded. In 2003, Red Hat told CRN it was developing a two-pronged channel program to enlist more support from hardware partners as well as VARs and resellers. Since then, Red Hat has focused on distributing its Linux software and middleware primarily through the OEM channel and select resellers.
At LinuxWorld Expo and Open Source Solutions last week, Red Hat unveiled a global solutions accelerator program with Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel, designed to help customers and partners accelerate deployment of Linux and Xen virtualization features in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, due later this year.
At the conference, Red Hat also confirmed it is stepping up its channel development efforts and has in place a program for VARs operating out of its sales organization.
"We have a partner program," said Bret Hunter, director of partner marketing at Red Hat, during a meeting with CRN at the Boston show.
When pressed for more details, Hunter declined to elaborate on the structure of the program or incentives for partners. But he acknowledged that last month the company held its "first annual partner event" to seek feedback and share strategic goals.
Sources said the Raleigh, N.C.-based Linux leader has been in stealth mode trying to recruit an army of new resellers and service partners. Red Hat invited Akibia, Adeara, Forsythe Solutions Group, Vicom Computer Services, Enterico and Expert Servergroup to the recent event as it prepares to face off against Novell's formidable channel in the enterprise and SMB markets.
THE WAR IS ON
Novell and Red Hat, the top two commercial Linux players, both have strong partnerships with IBM and Hewlett-Packard and can tap into those vendors' partner channels, such as the HP Linux Elite partner program. But as Linux and open- source opportunities expand, the two giants are battling for the hearts and minds of channel partners, observers say.
At the Intel Solutions Summit recently, shortly after Novell launched its SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, Red Hat said it would provide a "channel enablement" model for system builders to push a new Red Hat Linux desktop offering for SMB customers, coming out this summer. And Red Hat's ramped-up partner activity signifies a sea change in the business of Linux and open source, partners say.
For its part, Novell, Waltham, Mass., holds an advantage with its global support organization, 3,200 PartnerNet members, more than 10,000 partners worldwide and a large installed base of NetWare customers looking for a migration path.
Yet when it comes to Linux, Red Hat has a stronger brand name and deeper market share than Novell. However, solution providers say Red Hat needs to build trust in the channel as it moves to extend its footprint into the growing enterprise and SMB feeding ground.
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